Mate in one, two, three
Mate in five
Five moves of forced mate, from a database of six million puzzles that holds only a few thousand of them. Every one is a king hunt or a study-like sequence where each move is the only move. These are not practice, they are the deep end, and getting one right is its own reward.
How to spot it
The same method as any long forcing line, done more carefully. Every move of yours should be a check or an unanswerable threat, and if it is not, the line is probably wrong. Track their king's square count after every move: a hunt that is working never lets that number go back up.
The positions
Easiest first. Every one is from a real game, and the rating under each board is what it costs the players who have tried it on lichess.
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1. White to play Play it out →Answer
28.Qxc7+ Ka7 29.Bd4+ Ka8 30.Rd8+ Rxd8 31.Qxd8+ Bc8 32.Qxc8#
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2. White to play Play it out →Answer
31.Rxg7+ Kxg7 32.Rg3+ Kh7 33.Qg6+ Kh8 34.Qh6+ Rh7 35.Qxf8#
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3. White to play Play it out →Answer
24.Qxe6+ Kb8 25.Qd6+ Ka8 26.Rf8+ Rxf8 27.Qxf8+ Bd8 28.Qxd8#
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4. White to play Play it out →Answer
30.Qxa7+ Kxa7 31.Ra1+ Kb6 32.Nc4+ Kc5 33.Ra5+ Kxc4 34.b3#
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5. Black to play Play it out →Answer
59...exd2 60.b5 c5 61.b6 c4 62.b7 c3 63.b8=Q c2#
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6. Black to play Play it out →Answer
27...Qxf2+ 28.Kh1 Bf1 29.Qg5 hxg5 30.Rxf1 Qxf1+ 31.Rxf1 Rxf1#
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7. White to play Play it out →Answer
29.Rd7+ Kh8 30.Rxh7+ Kxh7 31.Qxg6+ Kh8 32.Qh5+ Qh6 33.Qxh6#
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8. Black to play Play it out →Answer
35...Qb2+ 36.Kg5 Bh6+ 37.Kxh6 Qc1+ 38.Rd2 Qxd2+ 39.f4 Qxf4#
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9. White to play Play it out →Answer
21.Qxf7+ Rxf7 22.Bxf7+ Kh8 23.Rd8+ Rxd8 24.Rxd8+ Bf8 25.Be5#
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10. Black to play Play it out →Answer
38...Bg1+ 39.Rxg1 Rf2+ 40.Kh1 Rh2+ 41.Kxh2 Nf3+ 42.Kh1 Rxg1#
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11. White to play Play it out →Answer
30.Rb8+ Bf8 31.Rxf8+ Kxf8 32.Nh7+ Kg8 33.Nf6+ Kh8 34.Rh7#
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12. White to play Play it out →Answer
17.Nde4 Nf8 18.Qxg7+ Rxg7 19.Nf6+ Kh8 20.Nf7+ Rxf7 21.Bxf8+ Bh3 22.Rxh3+ Rh7 23.Rxh7#
Reading about a pattern is the easy half. Motify finds the positions where you missed one, by running your own lichess and Chess.com games through Stockfish, and puts each of them behind two or three puzzles on the same idea so you meet it having just found it three times. See how Motify works.
Positions from the lichess puzzle database, released under CC0.