Smothered mate
Encyclopedia
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...
, a smothered mate is a checkmate
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...
delivered by a knight
Knight (chess)
The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
in which the mated 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...
is unable to move because he is surrounded (or smothered) by his own pieces.
The mate is usually seen in a corner of the board, since fewer pieces are needed to surround the king there. The most common form of smothered mate is seen in the diagram to the right. The knight
Knight (chess)
The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
on f7 delivers mate to the king on h8 which is prevented from escaping the check by the 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...
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 kingside castling
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...
is the more common as it safely places the king closer to the corner than it would had the castling occurred on the queenside.
Introduction
For a smothered mate of this sort to occur in a game, it is usually necessary to sacrificeSacrifice (chess)
In chess, a sacrifice is a move giving up a piece in the hopes of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value....
material to compel pieces to smother the king – a player is unlikely to voluntarily surround his king with pieces in a position where a smothered mate is possible. One method is particularly common – an example is to be found in the game between Jan Timman
Jan Timman
Jan Timman is a Dutch chess Grandmaster who was one of the world's leading 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 as "The Best of the West"...
(White) and Nigel Short
Nigel Short
Nigel David Short MBE is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 – July 1989 and in 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess...
(Black) at the 1990 Tilburg
Tilburg
Tilburg is a landlocked municipality and a city in the Netherlands, located in the southern province of Noord-Brabant.Tilburg municipality also includes the villages of Berkel-Enschot and Udenhout....
tournament. From the diagrammed position, play continued 27.Nf7+ Kg8 28.Nh6+ Kh8 29.Qg8+ Rxg8 30.Nf7#. The procedure is: check with the knight, then move the knight away to deliver a double check
Double check
In chess, a double check is a check delivered by two pieces at the same time. In chess notation, it is often symbolized by "++".-Discussion:...
from the queen
Queen (chess)
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...
and knight, then sacrifice the queen to force the 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...
next to the king, then mate with the knight. (Note that White would force mate even if his rook, and his pawn on e7, were removed from the board, and Black had a knight on f6. In that case, 27.Nf7+ Kg8 28.Nh6+ Kh8 (28...Kf8 29.Qf7#) 29.Qg8+! Nxg8 (or 29...Rxg8) 30.Nf7 still mates.)
This technique is so common as to have its own name: Philidor's Mate or Philidor's Legacy (after François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor , often referred to as André Danican Philidor during his lifetime, was a French composer and chess player. He contributed to the early development of the opéra comique...
). This is something of a misnomer, however, as it is first described in Luis Ramirez Lucena
Luis Ramirez Lucena
Luis Ramírez de Lucena was a leading Spanish chess player. He wrote the oldest existing printed book on chess, Repetition of Love and the Art of Playing Chess , published in Salamanca in 1497...
's 1497 text on chess, Repetición de Amores e Arte de Axedrezhttp://bvpb.mcu.es/es/catalogo_imagenes/grupo.cmd?posicion=201&path=4869&forma=&presentacion=pagina&config_zoom=S, which predates Philidor by several hundred years.
In the opening
Occasionally, a smothered mate may be possible in the 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...
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# (final position at left). Note that the knight cannot be taken because the pawn on e2 is pinned
Pin (chess)
In chess, a pin is a situation brought on by an attacking piece in which a defending piece cannot move without exposing a more valuable defending piece on its other side to capture by the attacking piece...
to the white king by the black queen on e7. Another notorious example is the so-called "Blackburne Shilling Gambit
Blackburne Shilling Gambit
The Blackburne Shilling Gambit is the name facetiously given to a dubious chess opening, derived from an offshoot of the Italian Game, that begins 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4?!...
" (named after the 19th century English player Joseph Henry Blackburne
Joseph Henry Blackburne
Joseph Henry Blackburne , nicknamed "The Black Death", dominated British chess during the latter part of the 19th century. He learned the game at the relatively late age of 18 but quickly became a strong player and went on to develop a professional chess career that spanned over 50 years...
, supposedly because he used it to win shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
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# (final position at right). There is also a well-known trap in the Caro-Kann Defence
Caro-Kann Defence
The Caro-Kann Defence is a chess opening —a common defense against the King's Pawn Opening characterised by the moves:The usual continuation isfollowed by 3.Nc3 , 3.Nd2 , 3.exd5 , or 3.e5 . The classical variation has gained much popularity...
: 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Qe2!? Ngf6?? 6.Nd6#. This trap has claimed many victims, perhaps the earliest recorded example being Alekhine
Alexander Alekhine
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...
-Four Amateurs, 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...
, Palma de Mallorca
Palma de Mallorca
Palma is the major city and port on the island of Majorca and capital city of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. The names Ciutat de Mallorca and Ciutat were used before the War of the Spanish Succession and are still used by people in Majorca. However, the official name...
1935.
Examples from games
An example of a similar smothered mate in masterChess master
A chess master is a chess player of such skill that he/she can usually beat chess experts, who themselves typically prevail against most amateurs. Among chess players, the term is often abbreviated to master, the meaning being clear from context....
-level play is the game between Edward Lasker
Edward Lasker
Edward Lasker was a leading German-American chess and Go player. He was awarded the title of International Master of chess by FIDE. Lasker was an engineer by profession, and an author.-Background:...
(White) and Israel Horowitz (Black) in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, 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 between Unzicker
Wolfgang Unzicker
Wolfgang Unzicker was one of the strongest German chess Grandmasters from 1945 to about 1970.He decided against making chess his profession, choosing law instead....
and Sarapu
Ortvin Sarapu
Ortvin Sarapu MBE , sometimes known as "Mr Chess", was a New Zealand chess International Master who won or co-won the New Zealand Chess Championship 20 times between 1952 and 1990.-Early life:Born Ortvin Sarapuu in Estonia, he won the Estonian Junior Championship in 1940, then defected to Finland...
, 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#