I agree with Rimvydas' approach.

And for performance concerns on CTEs on this particular problem, this gives all the years from 1753 to 9999 that have 3 Friday the thirteenths.

It runs in about 2 to 3 seconds on my small test machine.

with thirteen (thedate) as(

select cast('01/13/1753' as datetime) as thedate

union all

select DATEADD(mm, 1, thedate)

from thirteen

where thedate < '01/01/9999'

)

select year(thedate) yr,

count(*) cnt

from thirteen

where DATENAME(dw, thedate) = 'Friday'

group by year(thedate)

having count(*) = 3

OPTION (MAXRECURSION 0)