chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

, an ideal mate is a checkmate position that is a special form of model mate. While in a model mate, each piece on the mating player's side (possibly excluding the

king King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

and pawns depending on context) participates in the mate, an ideal mate involves all the pieces of the mated player's as well, typically by blocking the mated king's field of movement so that it cannot escape. As in a model mate, an ideal mate also involves the mating pieces attacking the vacant squares around the mated king's exactly once, and not attacking the mated player's other pieces occupying the king's field of movement. For example, in the second position at right, white delivers an ideal mate. The mate is delivered with the white rook, and the black king cannot stay or move to d4 or f4. The white king prevents the black king from escaping to d5 or f5 and prevents capture of the knight, while that

knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of 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. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

prevents escape to d3 and f3, and the black rook blocks escape to e3, while not being attacked by any of White's pieces. The very restrictive definition of an ideal mate means that it rarely ends actual chess games, excepting some basic checkmates (such as king and rook against a lone king), but ideal mates are a common theme in

chess problems A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by the composer using chess pieces on a chess board, which presents the solver with a particular task. For instance, a position may be given with the instruction that White is to ...

, like the one at right.

References

* {{chess-stub Chess checkmates Chess problems