Why do Hikaru and other top chess players miss mate in 1 much more frequently than mate in 2 or 3+?

Some time ago I was browsing the Insight section of Chess.com to read statistics on Hikaru and other popular chess players.

I  discovered a peculiar phenomenon: the percentage of missed mate in 1 is always, significantly higher than the percentage of missed mate in 2, 3 or more. Both in blitz and rapid games.

Are mates in 1 harder to find, generally speaking? Does it happen because found mate in 2+ are more likely to be the result of a deeper search/calculation effort?

I'm a bit puzzled. How do you explain it?

Hikaru:

ChessBrah:

GothamChess:

AlexandraBotez:

GMs are more used to calculating sets of moves, so they will try to see a move that may lead to checkmate more often than a move that just checkmates automatically, since they aren't used to seeing mate in 1 on the board as much. 

That seems like an insightful answer... maybe true.

I think we should remember that in a classical game, a top GM is not going to miss mate in 1 (or 2 or 3). So approximately 100% of these missed mates are in time scrambles. Maybe mate in 1 is a very common length of forced mate to appear when both players are premoving, and mates in 2 or 3 appear in time trouble, but aren't missed as often because they don't happen during all-out premove sequences.

Maybe also it's a useful tactic, during premoves, to purposefully move into mate in 1 because it will be a move your GM opponent assumes can't happen, so their premove will be poor.

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Seems it's true for me, and "similar players" too.

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I know that sometimes the engine points out I missed a faster mate... but I ignore it because during the game I had already calculated a mate and that's the one I was playing.

I'm pretty sure GMs play the same way i.e. after they calculate a forced mate, they stop looking for anything better.

Maybe this way of thinking leads to missing many mates in 1 (because you're playing a mate in 2 or 3 instead), I don't know.

I'm not sure what you mean, but perhaps it is worth pointing out that those statistics are in percentages.

This implies that when 100 opportunities of mate in 1 arose, Hikaru missed 31 of them, while when the same amount (100) of mate in 2 arose, Hikaru missed only 6 of them.

They look too far ahead and miss what is under their nose, may be their chess mind is tuned to looking two or three moves ahead constantly and when a sudden opportunity arises they overlook it, 

Basically that was my hypothesis, because that's also what happens to me when I play.

I actively search for a mate net/combination assuming that there might be one, while the opportunity of a mate in 1 arises in a sudden way, when the opponent makes a mistake. So, it's a more unexpected scenario and I have first to realize that the mate opportunity exists.

That's a very interesting take, I didn't think of premoves because I only play slower games and I never premove.

It would be interesting to find out whether the phenomenon also exists in on-the-board blitz/rapid games, where premoves are not possible.

Yes, this could play a role.

However, I think the "don't look for something better" approach would equally affect the comparison of mate in 2 and 3 (or 3 and 4). We would observe players missing mate in 2 more often than mate in 3, while the numbers show otherwise.

So, I still have the impression that missing mate in 1 is a "special case", involving other reasons. The contribution of premoves, which you pointed out earlier, could be spot on.

_hi_

GMs are most likely to calculate a set of moves, so they will see a move that leads to mate in 2, 3, 4, 5+ more often than a mate in 1 move

I agree with those who've pointed out that it's almost certainly due to time scrambles.

Accuracy tends to fly out the window in those final few seconds. At that point, it's mostly about stacking random premoves, to avoid the flag ...

I would also assume that its simply because

1. Mate in one is far more frequent than in two, three etc

2. This only occurs in timescrambles when the goal is to move as fast as possible to avoid running out of time

Top players often rely heavily on pattern recognition and calculation skills. When searching for a win, they may be focused on complex patterns and combinations, sometimes overlooking the simplest direct checkmate because they are calculating deeper lines.