How to Play

The puzzle consists of a chessboard with a number of red-highlighted squares and a selection of chess pieces.

You will be given a black King and a small set of white pieces: Bishops, Knights, Queens and/or Rooks

The pieces may only be placed on the highlighted squares. The aim is to arrange the pieces on the board as if a game of chess has just finished and white has checkmated black.

Each puzzle has only one solution. A stalemate does not count.

How the pieces move

Checkmate uses the chess pieces below, which move the same as they do in a normal game of chess.

King

The king moves one square in any direction — horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

Rook

The rook moves any number of squares horizontally or vertically, but cannot move through other pieces.

Bishop

The bishop moves any number of squares diagonally, but cannot move through other pieces.

Queen

The queen combines rook and bishop: it can move any number of squares horizontally, vertically or diagonally, but cannot move through other pieces.

Knight

The knight moves in an L-shape: two squares in one direction and one square at a right-angle. It jumps over any pieces in between the start and end squares.

Check, checkmate, and stalemate

For this game you don't need to worry about most of the rules of chess, other than how pieces move, checking and checkmating.
You don't have to worry about how the pieces got into the positions they are in.
You don't have to worry where white king is (it's irrelevant to the puzzle)

Check

The king is "checked" when an enemy piece is directly threatening it, i.e. it's positioned so that it could capture the king on its next turn.
If the king can move to an unchecked square, or take the piece that has checked it, this is only "check", not "checkmate"

Checkmate

"Checkmate" is when the king is in check and has no way of escape. A move in any direction would take it to another square that is checked. Each puzzle will only have one way to checkmate the king using the allowed squares

Stalemate

"Stalemate" is when the king is not in check, but has no legal move. A move in any direction would put it into check (which is a big no-no). In chess, a stalemate ends the game in a draw. In this puzzle, stalemate is not not a solution (there will be a way to checkmate).