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chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...
, a smothered mate is a
checkmate Checkmate (often shortened to mate) is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check (threatened with ) and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game. In chess, the king is ...
delivered by a
knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...
in which the mated
king King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...
is unable to move because it is completely surrounded (or ''smothered'') by its own pieces, which a knight can jump over. The mate is usually seen in a corner of the board, since only three pieces are needed to surround the king there, less than anywhere else. The most common form of smothered mate is seen in the adjacent diagram. The
knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...
on f7 delivers mate to the king on h8, which is prevented from escaping the check by the rook on g8 and the pawns on g7 and h7. Similarly, White can be mated with the white king on h1 and the knight on f2. Analogous mates on a1 and a8 are rarer because
castling Castling is a move in chess. It consists of moving the king (chess), king two squares toward a rook (chess), rook on the same and then moving the rook to the square that the king passed over. Castling is permitted only if neither the king ...
is more common than castling and brings the king closer to the corner.


Methods

For a smothered mate to occur in a game, it is usually necessary to
sacrifice Sacrifice is an act or offering made to a deity. A sacrifice can serve as propitiation, or a sacrifice can be an offering of praise and thanksgiving. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Gree ...
to compel pieces to smother the king – a player is unlikely to voluntarily surround their king with pieces in a way that makes a smothered mate possible.


Philidor's mate

Philidor's mate, also known as Philidor's legacy, is a checkmating pattern that ends in smothered mate. This method involves checking with the knight forcing the king out of the corner of the board, moving the knight away to deliver a double check from the
queen Queen most commonly refers to: * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a kingdom * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen (band), a British rock band Queen or QUEEN may also refer to: Monarchy * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Q ...
and knight, sacrificing the queen to force the rook next to the king, and mating with the knight. The technique is named after François-André Danican Philidor; this is something of a misnomer, however, as it is earlier described in Luis Ramirez Lucena's 1497 text on chess, ''Repetición de Amores e Arte de Axedrez'', which predates Philidor by several hundred years. An example is to be found in the game
Jan Timman Jan Timman (born 14 December 1951) is a Dutch chess grandmaster who was one of the world's leading chess players from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. At the peak of his career, he was considered to be the best non-Soviet player and was known a ...
Nigel Short Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English Grandmaster (chess), chess grandmaster, columnist, coach and commentator who has been the FIDE Director for Chess Development since September 2022. Short earned the title of grandmaster at the ...
at the 1990
Tilburg Tilburg () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant. With a population of 22 ...
tournament. From the diagrammed position, play continued 27. Nf7+ Kg8 28. Nh6+ Kh8 29. Qg8+ Rxg8 30. Nf7#. (Note that White would force mate even if his rook, and pawn on e7, were removed from the board, and Black had a knight on f6. In that case, 27.Nf7+ Kg8 28.Nh6+ Kh8 8...Kf8 29.Qf7#29.Qg8+ Nxg8 r 29...Rxg830.Nf7 still mates.)


Opening traps

Occasionally, a smothered mate may be possible in the opening of a game. One of the most famous, and most frequently occurring, is in the Budapest Gambit. It arises after 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Bf4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bb4+ 6. Nbd2 Qe7 7. a3 Ngxe5 8. axb4?? Nd3# (see diagram). Note that the knight cannot be taken because the pawn on e2 is pinned to the white king by the black queen on e7. Another notorious example is the so-called " Blackburne Shilling Gambit" (named after the 19th-century English player Joseph Henry Blackburne, supposedly because he used it to win
shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currency, currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 1 ...
s from amateurs). It goes: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nd4?! 4. Nxe5!? Qg5! 5. Nxf7?? Qxg2 6. Rf1 Qxe4+ 7. Be2 Nf3# (see diagram). There is also a well-known trap in the Caro–Kann Defence: 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4. Nxe4 Nd7 5. Qe2!? Ngf6?? 6. Nd6#. This trap has occurred in many games, perhaps the earliest recorded example being Alekhine–Four Amateurs,
simultaneous exhibition A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition (commonly chess or Go) in which one player (typically of high rank, such as a grandmaster or dan-level player) plays multiple games at a time with a number of other pl ...
,
Palma de Mallorca Palma (, ; ), also known as Palma de Mallorca (officially between 1983 and 1988, 2006–2008, and 2012–2016), is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is ...
1935.


Examples from games

An example of a similar smothered mate in master-level play is the game Edward LaskerIsrael Horowitz, New York City 1946, which went: 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e3 c5 4. c4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 e5 6. Nf3 Nc6 7. Nc3 d4 8. exd4 exd4 9. Nb5 Bb4+ 10. Bd2 0-0 11. Bxb4 Nxb4 12. Nbxd4 Qa5 13. Nd2 Qe5+ 14. Ne2 Nd3#. Another example is the game UnzickerSarapu, Siegen Olympiad 1970: 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e5 Nd5 4. Nc3 e6 5. Nxd5 exd5 6. d4 Nc6 7. dxc5 Bxc5 8. Qxd5 Qb6 9. Bc4 Bxf2+ 10. Ke2 0-0 11. Rf1 Bc5 12. Ng5 Nd4+ 13. Kd1 Ne6 14. Ne4 d6 15. exd6 Bxd6?? 16. Nxd6 Rd8 17. Bf4! Nxf4? 18. Qxf7+ Kh8 19. Qg8+! Sarapu now resigned in light of 19...Rxg8 20.Nf7#.


See also

* Checkmate patterns


References

Bibliography * *
“The Smothered Mate” by Edward Winter
{{Chess Chess checkmates Chess terminology Chess tactics