In chess, checkmate pattern is a recognizable/particular/studied arrangements of pieces that delivers checkmate.[1] Several checkmate patterns occur frequently enough to have acquired specific names in chess commentary. The diagrams that follow show these checkmates with White checkmating Black.
In Anastasia's mate, a knight and rook team up to trap the opposing king between the side of the board on one side and a friendly piece on the other. Often, the queen is first sacrificed along the a-file or h-file to achieve the position. A bishop can be used instead of a knight to the same effect (see Greco's mate). This checkmate gets its name from the novel Anastasia und das Schachspiel by Johann Jakob Wilhelm Heinse,[2][3] but the novelist took the chess position from an essay by Giambattista Lolli.
Anderssen's mate
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An archetypal Anderssen's mate
In Anderssen's mate (named for Adolf Anderssen), the rook or queen is supported by a diagonally attacking piece such as a pawn or bishop as it checkmates the opposing king along the eighth rank.
Sometimes a distinction is drawn between Anderssen's mate, where the rook is supported by a pawn (which itself is supported by another piece, as in the diagram), and Mayet's mate, where the rook is supported by a distant bishop.[4]
Arabian mate
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An archetypal Arabian mate
In the Arabian mate, the knight and the rook team up to trap the opposing king on a corner of the board. The rook sits on a square adjacent to the king both to prevent escape along the diagonal and to deliver checkmate while the knight sits two squares away diagonally from the king to prevent escape on the square next to the king and to protect the rook.[5]
In addition to being among the most common mating patterns, the Arabian mate is also an important topic in the context of history of chess for being mentioned in an ancient Arabic manuscript dating from the 8th century CE.[6] The pattern is also derived from an older form of chess in which the knight and the rook were the two most powerful pieces in the game, before chess had migrated to Europe and the queen given its current powers of movement.
The back-rank mate occurs when a rook or queen checkmates a king that is blocked in by its own pieces (usually pawns) on the first or eighth rank.
Balestra mate
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An archetypal balestra mate
The balestra mate involves a queen cutting off the king's escape both diagonally and vertically whilst having a bishop deliver checkmate.[citation needed]
The bishop and knight mate is one of the four basic checkmates and occurs when the king works together with a bishop and knight to force the opponent king to the corner of the board. The bishop and knight endgame can be difficult to master: some positions may require up to 34 moves of perfect play before checkmate can be delivered.
Blackburne's mate
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An archetypal Blackburne's mate
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An alternative version of Blackburne's mate
Blackburne's mate is named for Joseph Henry Blackburne and is a rare method of checkmating. The checkmate utilizes enemy pieces (typically a rook) and/or the edge of the board, together with a friendly knight, to confine the enemy king's sideways escape, while a friendly bishop pair takes the remaining two diagonals off from the enemy king.[7] Threatening Blackburne's mate, which sometimes goes in conjunction with a queen sacrifice, can be used to weaken Black's position.
Blind swine mate
White mates in 3 moves
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Position prior to a blind swine mate
An archetypal blind swine mate
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Final position after 3 moves
The blind swine mate pattern's name is attributed to Polish master Dawid Janowski who referred to doubled rooks on a player's 7th rank as "swine".[8] In the first diagram with White to play, White can force checkmate as follows:
1. Rxg7+ Kh8
2. Rxh7+ Kg8
3. Rbg7#
For this type of mate, the rooks on White's 7th rank can start on any two files from a to e, and although black pawns are commonly present as shown, they are not necessary to deliver the mate. The second diagram shows the final position after checkmate. (In the book My System, Nimzowitsch refers to this type of mate as: "The seventh rank, absolute.")
Boden's mate involves two attacking bishops on criss-crossing diagonals delivering checkmate to a king obstructed by friendly pieces, usually a rook and a pawn.[9][10]
Corner mate
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An archetypal corner mate
The corner mate is a common method of checkmating. It works by confining the king to the corner using a rook or queen with a pawn blocking the final escape square and using a minor piece to engage the checkmate.
Damiano's bishop mate
White mates in 4 moves
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1.Bxh7+ Kh8 2.Bg6+ Kg8 3.Qh7+ Kf8 4.Qxf7#
Final position after 4 moves
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An archetypal Damiano's bishop mate
Damiano's bishop mate is a classic method of checkmating. The checkmate utilizes a queen and bishop, where the bishop is used to support the queen and the queen is used to engage the checkmate. The checkmate is named after Pedro Damiano.
One can also think of similar mates like 'Damiano's knight' and 'Damiano's rook' or even 'Damiano's king' (See Queen mate below), 'Damiano's pawn' or 'Damiano's (second) queen'.
Damiano's mate
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An archetypal Damiano's mate
Damiano's mate is a classic method of checkmating and one of the oldest. It works by confining the king with a pawn and using a queen to execute the checkmate. Damiano's mate is often arrived at by first sacrificing a rook on the h-file, then checking the king with the queen on the a-file or h-file, and then moving in for the mate. The checkmate was first published by Pedro Damiano in 1512.[11] In Damiano's publication he failed to place the white king on the board which resulted in it not being entered into many chess databases due to their rejection of illegal positions.
Double bishop mate
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An archetypal double bishop mate
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An alternate pattern for the double bishop mate
The double bishop mate is a classic method of checkmating. It is similar to Boden's mate, but the two bishops are placed on parallel diagonals. The escape squares are occupied or controlled by enemy pieces.
Double knight mate
White mates in 2 moves
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Position prior to being mated
Final position
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A possible double knight mate
The double knight mate usually involves a king being trapped behind a pawn or a group of pawns in front of it and blocked by a piece to the side. The king is then checked by a knight and forced into a position in which it can be checkmated by the other knight.
Dovetail mate (Cozio's mate)
An archetypal dovetail mate
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After 1.Qh6+, Black is forced to play 1...Kg3.
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White then checkmates with 2.Qh2#.
The dovetail mate is a common method of checkmating, and is also known as Cozio's mate, named after a study by Carlo Cozio, published in 1766. It involves trapping the black king in the pattern shown. It does not matter how the queen is supported and it does not matter which type Black's other two pieces are so long as neither is an unpinned knight. See also Swallow's tail mate.
Epaulette mate
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Polgár, No. 193: mate in one, White to move. The solution, 1. Qg6#, is an epaulette mate
The epaulette mate is, in its broadest definition, a checkmate where two parallel retreat squares for a checked king are occupied by its own pieces, preventing its escape.[12] The most common epaulette mate involves the king on its back rank, trapped between two rooks.[13] The perceived visual similarity between the rooks and epaulettes, ornamental shoulder pieces worn on military uniforms, gives the checkmate its name.[13] In a compendium of problems by László Polgár, two elementary mate-in-one problems were given, with the solutions being epaulette mates.[14]
Greco's mate is a common method of checkmating. The checkmate is named after the famous Italian checkmate cataloguer Gioachino Greco. It works by using the bishop to contain the black king by use of the black g-pawn and subsequently using the queen or a rook to checkmate the king by moving it to the edge of the board.[16]
Hook mate
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An archetypal hook mate
The hook mate involves the use of a rook, knight, and pawn along with one enemy pawn to limit the enemy king's escape. The rook is protected by the knight, and the knight is protected by the pawn, while the pawn also attacks one of the enemy king's escape squares.
Kill box mate
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The kill box checkmate
The kill box mate is a box-shaped checkmate. The checkmate is delivered by a rook with the queen's assistance. The rook is adjacent to the king, while the queen supports the rook, being separated from it by one empty square on the same diagonal as the rook. This forms a 3 by 3 box shape, inside which the enemy king is trapped. The king could be anywhere on the board, but must have no escape squares available to him due either to being on the edge of the board or to being blocked off by friendly or enemy pieces.
The king and two bishops mate is one of the four basic checkmates. It occurs when the king with two bishops force the bare king to the corner of the board to force a possible mate.
King and two knights mate
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Checkmate with a king and two knights, but it cannot be forced
In a two knights endgame, the side with the king and two knights cannot checkmate a bare king by force. This endgame should be a draw if the bare king plays correctly. A mate only occurs if the player with the bare king blunders. In some circumstances, if the side with the bare king instead has a pawn, it is possible to set up this type of checkmate.
Ladder mate (lawnmower mate)
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A typical ladder mate
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An alternate pattern with a queen and rook
In the ladder mate,[17][18] also known as a lawnmower mate, two major pieces (which can be two queens, two rooks or one rook and one queen) work together to push the enemy king to one side of the board.
An alternative pattern, with the mate delivered by a bishop
In Légal's mate, two knights and a bishop coordinate to administer checkmate. Alternatively, the mate may be delivered by a bishop on g5.
Lolli's mate
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An archetypal Lolli's mate
Lolli's mate is a common method of checkmating. The checkmate involves infiltrating Black's fianchetto position using both a pawn and queen. The queen often gets to the h6-square by means of sacrifices on the h-file. It is named after Giambattista Lolli.
Max Lange's mate
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An archetypal Max Lange's mate
Max Lange's mate is a less common method of checkmating. The checkmate is named after Max Lange. It works by using the bishop and queen to checkmate the king.
Mayet's mate
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An archetypal Mayet's mate
Mayet's mate involves the use of a rook attacking the black king supported by a bishop. It often comes about after the black king castles on its kingside in a fianchetto position. White usually arrives at this position after a series of sacrifices on the a-file or h-file. It is a type of Anderssen's mate and closely resembles the Opera mate. The "h-file" mate is an apt description, but the pattern is properly called "Mayet's mate" after the German player Carl Mayet. See variation description in Anderssen's mate given above.[19]
Morphy's mate is a common method of checkmating. It was named after Paul Morphy. It works by using the bishop to attack the black king and a rook and Black's own pawn to confine it.[20][21] In many respects it is very similar to the Corner mate.
Note that for a bishop on f6, capturing on f7 is incorrect since upon giving the rook retreat, the black rook would simply capture the bishop.
Opera mate
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An archetypal opera mate
The opera mate is a common method of checkmating. It works by attacking an uncastled king on the back rank with a rook using a bishop to protect it. An enemy pawn or a piece other than a knight is used to restrict the enemy king's movement. It is a type of Anderssen's mate and closely resembles Mayet's mate. The checkmate was named after its implementation by Paul Morphy in 1858 at a game at the Paris opera against Duke Karl of Brunswick and Count Isouard; see Opera game.
Pawn mate (David and Goliath mate)
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An archetypal pawn mate
The pawn mate, also known as the David and Goliath mate, is a common method of checkmating. Although the pawn mate can take many forms, it is characterized generally as a mate in which a pawn is the final attacking piece and where enemy pawns are nearby. Its alternate name is taken from the biblical account of David and Goliath.
Pillsbury's mate
White mates in 3 moves
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1.Rg1+ Kh8 2.Bg7+ Kg8 3.Bxf6#
An archetypal Pillsbury's mate
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Final position after 3 moves
Pillsbury's mate[22] is a common method of checkmating and is named for Harry Nelson Pillsbury. It works by attacking the king with the rook while the bishop is cutting off the king.[23] It is very similar to Morphy's Mate, in fact in some ways they are interchangeable, the main difference is that in Pillsbury's mate, the bishop could be on h6.
The queen mate is one of the four basic checkmates. It occurs when the side with the king and queen force the bare king to the edge or corner of the board. The queen checkmates the bare king with the support of the allied king.
In line with Damiano's bishop mate earlier, this could be seen as 'Damiano's king mate'.
Réti's mate
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An archetypal Réti's mate
Réti's mate is a famous method of checkmating. The checkmate is named after Richard Réti, who delivered it in an 11-move game[24] against Savielly Tartakower in 1910 in Vienna. It works by trapping the enemy king with four of its own pieces that are situated on flight squares and then attacking it with a bishop that is protected by a rook or queen.
The rook mate is one of the four basic checkmates. It occurs when the side with the king and rook box in the bare king to the corner or edge of the board. The mate is delivered by the rook along the edge rank or file, and escape towards the centre of the board is blocked by the king.
Smothered mate is a common method of checkmating. It occurs when a knight checkmates a king that is smothered (surrounded) by his friendly pieces and he has nowhere to move nor is there any way to capture the knight.[25] One common checkmating pattern finishing with a smothered mate is known as Philidor's Legacy after François-André Danican Philidor, though its documentation predates Philidor by several hundred years.[26]
Suffocation mate
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An archetypal suffocation mate
The suffocation mate is a common method of checkmating. It works by using the knight to attack the enemy king and the bishop or queen to confine the king's escape routes.
Swallow's tail mate (guéridon mate)
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An archetypal swallow's tail mate
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Other archetypal swallow's tail mate
The swallow's tail mate, also known as the guéridon mate, is a common method of checkmating. It works by attacking the enemy king with a queen that is protected by a rook or other piece. The enemy king's own pieces (in this example, rooks) block its means of escape.[27] It resembles the epaulette mate.
Triangle mate
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An archetypal triangle mate
The triangle mate involves a queen, supported by a rook on the same file two squares away, delivering checkmate to a king that is either at the edge of the board or whose escape is blocked by a piece; the queen, rook, and king together form a triangular shape, hence the name of the mating pattern.
Vuković's mate
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An archetypal Vuković's mate
Vuković’s mate is a mate involving a protected rook which delivers checkmate to the king at the edge of the board, while a knight covers the remaining escape squares of the king. The rook is usually protected with either the king or a pawn.[28]
Chess strategy is the aspect of chess play concerned with evaluation of chess positions and setting goals and long-term plans for future play. While evaluating a position strategically, a player must take into account such factors as the relative value of the pieces on the board, pawn structure, king safety, position of pieces, and control of key squares and groups of squares. Chess strategy is distinguished from chess tactics, which is the aspect of play concerned with the move-by-move setting up of threats and defenses. Some authors distinguish static strategic imbalances, which tend to persist for many moves, from dynamic imbalances, which are temporary. This distinction affects the immediacy with which a sought-after plan should take effect. Until players reach the skill level of "master", chess tactics tend to ultimately decide the outcomes of games more often than strategy. Many chess coaches thus emphasize the study of tactics as the most efficient way to improve one's results in serious chess play.
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess. It can move any number of squares vertically, horizontally or diagonally, combining the powers of the rook and bishop. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. Because the queen is the strongest piece, a pawn is promoted to a queen in the vast majority of cases.
A chess piece, or chessman, is a game piece that is placed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. It can be either white or black, and it can be one of six types: king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, or pawn.
The rules of chess govern the play of the game of chess. Chess is a two-player abstract strategy board game. Each player controls sixteen pieces of six types on a chessboard. Each type of piece moves in a distinct way. The object of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king; checkmate occurs when a king is threatened with capture and has no escape. A game can end in various ways besides checkmate: a player can resign, and there are several ways a game can end in a draw.
The endgame is the final stage of a chess game which occurs after the middlegame. It begins when few pieces are left on the board.
This glossary of chess explains commonly used terms in chess, in alphabetical order. Some of these terms have their own pages, like fork and pin. For a list of unorthodox chess pieces, see Fairy chess piece; for a list of terms specific to chess problems, see Glossary of chess problems; for a list of named opening lines, see List of chess openings; for a list of chess-related games, see List of chess variants; for a list of terms general to board games, see Glossary of board games.
The Immortal Game was a chess game played in 1851 by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. It was played while the London 1851 chess tournament was in progress, an event in which both players participated. The Immortal Game was itself a casual game, however, not played as part of the tournament. Anderssen won the game by allowing a double rook sacrifice, a major loss of material, while also developing a mating attack with his remaining minor pieces. Despite losing the game, Kieseritzky was impressed with Anderssen's performance. Shortly after it was played, Kieseritzky published the game in La Régence, a French chess journal which he helped to edit. In 1855, Ernst Falkbeer published an analysis of the game, describing it for the first time with its sobriquet "immortal".
The Opera Game was an 1858 chess game, played at an opera house in Paris. The American master Paul Morphy played against two strong amateurs: the German noble Karl II, Duke of Brunswick, and the French aristocrat Comte Isouard de Vauvenargues. It was played as a consultation game, with Duke Karl and Count Isouard jointly deciding each move for the black pieces, while Morphy controlled the white pieces by himself. The game was played in a box while an opera was performed on stage. Morphy quickly checkmated his opponents following rapid development of material, involving a queen sacrifice.
Checkmate is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game.
In chess, a tactic is a sequence of moves that each makes one or more immediate threats – a check, a material threat, a checkmating sequence threat, or the threat of another tactic – that culminates in the opponent's being unable to respond to all of the threats without making some kind of concession. Most often, the immediate benefit takes the form of a material advantage or mating attack; however, some tactics are used for defensive purposes and can salvage material that would otherwise be lost, or to induce stalemate in an otherwise lost position.
Boden's Mate is a checkmating pattern in chess characterized by bishops on two criss-crossing diagonals, with possible flight squares for the king being occupied by friendly pieces or under attack by enemy pieces. Most often the checkmated king has castled queenside, and is mated on c8 or c1. Many variants on the mate are seen, for example a king on e8 checkmated by bishops on g6 and a3, and a king on f1 checkmated by bishops on h3 and b6. Often the mate is immediately preceded by a sacrifice that opens up the diagonal on which the bishop delivers checkmate, and the mate is often a pure mate.
In chess and other related games, a double check is a check delivered by two pieces simultaneously. In chess notation, it is almost always represented the same way as a single check ("+"), but is sometimes symbolized by "++". This article uses "++" for double check and "#" for checkmate.
In chess, a pure mate is a checkmate position such that the mated king is attacked exactly once, and prevented from moving to any of the adjacent squares in its field for exactly one reason per square. Each of the squares in the mated king's field is attacked or "guarded" by one—and only one—attacking unit, or else a square which is not attacked is occupied by a friendly unit, a unit of the same color as the mated king. Some authors allow that special situations involving double check or pins may also be considered as pure mate.
The princess is a fairy chess piece that can move like a bishop or a knight. It cannot jump over other pieces when moving as a bishop but may do so when moving as a knight. The piece has acquired many names and is frequently called an archbishop, a cardinal, or a dragon; it may also simply be called the bishop+knight compound. The princess can force checkmate on an enemy king without the help of any other friendly piece.
In chess, a queen sacrifice is a move that sacrifices a queen, the most powerful piece, in return for some compensation, such as a tactical or positional advantage.
Tsume shogi or tsume (詰め) is the Japanese term for a shogi miniature problem in which the goal is to checkmate the opponent's king. Tsume problems usually present a situation that might occur in a shogi game, and the solver must find out how to achieve checkmate. It is similar to a mate-in-n chess problem.
In chess, a flight square or escape square is a safe square to which a piece, especially a king, can move if it is threatened.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to chess:
Chesquerque is a chess variant invented by George R. Dekle Sr. in 1986. The game is played on a board composed of four Alquerque boards combined into a square. Like Alquerque, pieces are positioned on points of intersection and make their moves along marked lines ; as such, the board comprises a 9×9 grid with 81 positions (points) that pieces can move to.
In chess, an economical mate is a checkmate position such that all of the attacker's remaining knights, bishops, rooks and queens contribute to the mating attack. The attacker's king and pawns may also contribute to the mate, but their assistance is not required, nor does it disqualify the position from being an economical mate. Economical mates are of interest to chess problem composers for their aesthetic value. In real gameplay, their occurrence is incidental. Nevertheless, some notable games have concluded with an economical mate such as the Opera game, won by Paul Morphy.
↑ The original "Anastasia's mate" appeared in: Wilhelm Heinse, Anastasia und das Schachspiel: Briefe aus Italien vom Verfasser des Ardinghello [Anastasia and Chess: Letters from Italy by the author of Ardinghello] (Frankfurt am Main, (Germany): Tarrentrapp und Wenner, 1803), volume 2, pages 211–213. The original "Anastasia's mate" is reproduced in modern notion with illustrations, in: Wilhelm Heinse, Anastasia und das Schachspiel … (Hamburg, Germany: Jens-Erik Rudolph Verlag, 2010), page 162, example 2. Note: Nowadays, "Anastasia's mate" refers to a mate in which the checkmated king is on an edge of the board or in a corner of the board, whereas in the original mate, the king was near the center of the board.
↑ "Famous Checkmates". Chess Lessons For Beginners. chesslessons4beginners.com. Archived from the original on 30 December 2013. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
↑ MacEnulty, David, The Chess Kid's Book of Checkmate, chap. 21 – The Blind Swine Checkmate, pp. 29–30, Random House Puzzles & Games, 2004, ISBN0812935942, 9780812935943
↑ This mate derives from the game Louis Paulsen vs. Paul Morphy (November 8, 1857 in New York City, New York (First American Chess Congress)). Morphy did not use this mating pattern to defeat Paulsen; instead, Morphy sacrificed his queen to remove the pawn in front of White's castled king, exposing the king to series of checks by Black's rook and bishop. (Morphy then added more pieces to the attack against White's king, rendering White's position hopeless; so White resigned.)
George Renaud and Victor Kahn, with W.J. Taylor, trans., The Art of Checkmate (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1962; reprint of: New York, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1953).
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