Boden's Mate
Encyclopedia
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
pattern in chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
characterized by bishops
Bishop (chess)
A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
on two criss-crossing diagonals (for example, bishops on a6 and f4 delivering mate to a king
King (chess)
In chess, the king is the most important piece. The object of the game is to trap the opponent's king so that its escape is not possible . If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be...
on c8), with possible flight square
Flight square
In chess, a flight square or escape square is a safe place or a square to which a King or other piece can move if it is threatened. A bishop sometimes begins to get hemmed in after Morphy's defense is used, and thus pawn to c3 may be used to create an extra escape square.One way to get a king out...
s for the king being occupied by friendly pieces. Most often the checkmated king has castled
Castling
Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess in which a player moves two pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then...
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.
The mate is named for Samuel Boden
Samuel Boden
Samuel Standidge Boden was an English professional chess master.The mating pattern "Boden's Mate" was named after the mate that occurred in one of his games, Schulder-Boden, London 1853....
, who played a famous early example of it in Schulder–Boden, London 1853. However, it had been known previously from the game Horwitz
Bernhard Horwitz
Bernhard Horwitz was a German English chess master and chess writer.Horwitz was born in Neustrelitz, and went to school in Berlin, where he studied art. From 1837 to 1843, he was part of a group of German chess players known as "The Pleiades".He moved to London in 1845...
–Popel, Hamburg 1844.
History
Boden's mate is characterized by a king being mated by two bishops on criss-crossing diagonals, with possible flight squares blocked by friendly pieces. Samuel Boden, for whom the mate is named, administered an early example of it in the friendly game Schulder–Boden, London 1853. That game went 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.c3 f5 4.Bc4 Nf6 5.d4 fxe4 6.dxe5 exf3 7.exf6 Qxf6 8.gxf3 Nc6 9.f4 Bd7 10.Be3 O-O-O 11.Nd2 Re8 12.Qf3 Bf5 13.O-O-O? (13.Bd5 is better) 13...d5! 14.Bxd5? (allowing a forced mate; better is 14.Rde1, losing a piece) 14...Qxc3+ 15.bxc3 Ba3#, giving the final checkmate position shown in the diagram.However, the mate had been known before that from the game Horwitz–Popert, Hamburg 1844 (see diagram). There, Black set a trap with 1...Bb8, which White fell into with 2.Rxd5?. Instead of playing the winning 2...Qxh2+ 3.Qxh2 Rxh2+ 4.Kxh2 c6+ (5.Re5 Nxe5 6.dxe5?? Rxd1) Black blundered with 2...c6??. After that White could not save his rook
Rook (chess)
A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes...
because of the threatened mate in two. Instead, he surprised Black with 3.Rh5! Qxh5 4.Qxc6+! bxc6 5.Bxa6#.
Typical pattern
Boden's mate has occurred in many later games, usually, as in the Boden and Horwitz games, after the losing kingKing (chess)
In chess, the king is the most important piece. The object of the game is to trap the opponent's king so that its escape is not possible . If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be...
has castled
Castling
Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess in which a player moves two pieces at the same time. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook on the player's first rank, then...
on the queenside, and the winner sets up the mate by a queen sacrifice on c3 or c6.
Perhaps the most famous example of Boden's mate is the so-called Peruvian Immortal
Peruvian Immortal
The Peruvian Immortal is the name given to a spectacular chess game played by the Peruvian master Esteban Canal against an unknown amateur in a simultaneous exhibition he gave at Budapest in 1934...
game, Canal–NN, simultaneous exhibition
Simultaneous exhibition
A simultaneous exhibition or simultaneous display is a board game exhibition in which one player plays multiple games at a time with a number of other players. Such an exhibition is often referred to simply as a "simul".In a regular simul, no chess clocks are used...
, Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
1934: 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qa5 4.d4 c6 5.Nf3 Bg4 6.Bf4 e6 7.h3 Bxf3 8.Qxf3 Bb4 9.Be2 Nd7 10.a3 O-O-O?? 11.axb4!! Qxa1+ 12.Kd2! Qxh1 13.Qxc6+! bxc6 14.Ba6#.
Atypical patterns
More rarely, Boden's mate can occur, for example, (a) where a White bishop on g6 delivers mate to a Black king on e8, which is hemmed in by a White bishop on a3, and its own queen on d8 and knight on d7 or (b) where a bishop on h6 delivers mate to a Black king on f8, which is hemmed in by a White bishop on c4, and its own queen on e8 and bishop on e7. An example of the former was Alekhine–Vasic, Banja Luka 1931: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Bd3 Bxc3+? 5.bxc3 h6? 6.Ba3 Nd7 7.Qe2 dxe4 8.Bxe4 Ngf6 9.Bd3 b6??, when White mated with 10.Qxe6+ fxe6 11.Bg6#. An example of the latter occurred in Elyashov–NN, Paris 1948, which illustrates an openingChess opening
A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...
trap arising from From's Gambit. After 1.f4 e5!? 2.fxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6 4.Nf3 g5 5.d4 g4 6.Ng5?! f5 7.e4 Be7? 8.Nh3! gxh3 9.Qh5+ Kf8 10.Bc4 Qe8, White mated with 11.Qh6+! Nxh6 12.Bxh6#.
In a game between two of the strongest players of the nineteenth century, White delivered a Boden's mate to a king on e7: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nge7 4.c3 d6 5.d4 Bd7 6.O-O Ng6 7.Ng5 h6 8.Nxf7 Kxf7 9.Bc4+ Ke7 10.Qh5 Qe8 11.Qg5+! hxg5 12.Bxg5# Zukertort–Anderssen, Breslau 1865. An unusual example of Boden's mate occurring to a king on d8, and without the winning side having to sacrifice to achieve the mating position, occurred in Pandolfini–NN, 1970, after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Nxe4 6.d4 exd4 7.Re1 d5 8.Nxd4 Bd6 9.Nxc6 Bxh2+ 10.Kh1 Qh4 11.Rxe4+ dxe4 12.Qd8+ Qxd8 13.Nxd8+ Kxd8 14.Kxh2 (So far this is a position known to opening theory from the Riga Variation of the Ruy Lopez
Ruy Lopez
The Ruy Lopez, also called the Spanish Opening or Spanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:-History:The opening is named after the 16th century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura, who made a systematic study of this and other openings in the 150-page book on chess Libro del...
. White is considered to have the advantage after 14...Be6 15.Be3.) f5?? 15.Bg5# 1–0.
External links
- Boden's mate game collection. ChessGames.com. Retrieved on 2009-02-17.