Mate in 4 Puzzles

Four-move mates are calculation endurance. The idea is rarely exotic — a king hunt, a battery, a net that tightens square by square — but holding four moves of forcing play in your head, with every branch answered, is real work. That is exactly why they are worth training.

Expect long king hunts: a sacrifice drags the king into the open, checks herd it up the board, and a quiet fourth move ends a journey that started on g8 somewhere around c3. Expect move-order traps too — many mate-in-4 positions contain a tempting sequence that mates in five instead, and only the precise order gets there in four.

The training payoff is depth. If your comfortable calculation horizon is two moves, forced four-move lines stretch it the honest way: with immediate feedback and no engine crutch. Candidate moves, opponent's best defense, and a written-in-your-head tree — the same discipline that wins won positions over the board.

Take the real-game puzzle on this page slowly; count your line to the mate before touching a piece. Then train longer mates in the trainer at your own level.