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 disti ...

, 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 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 ...

in which the mated

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 ...

is unable to move because it is completely surrounded (or ''smothered'') by its 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 adjacent diagram. The

on f7 delivers mate to the king on h8, which is prevented from escaping the

check Check or cheque, may refer to: Places * Check, Virginia Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Check'' (film), a 2021 Indian Telugu-language film * ''The Checks'' (episode), a 1996 TV episode of ''Seinfeld'' Games and sports * Check (chess), a thr ...

by the

rook Rook (''Corvus frugilegus'') is a bird of the corvid family. Rook or rooks may also refer to: Games *Rook (chess), a piece in chess *Rook (card game), a trick-taking card game Military * Sukhoi Su-25 or Rook, a close air support aircraft * USS ...

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 two squares toward a 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 nor the rook has previously moved ...

is more common than castling and brings the king closer to the corner.

Methods

For a smothered mate of this sort to occur in a game, it is usually necessary to

sacrifice Sacrifice is the offering of material possessions or the lives of animals or humans to a deity as an act of propitiation or worship. Evidence of ritual animal sacrifice has been seen at least since ancient Hebrews and Greeks, and possibly exi ...

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 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 it is sometimes symbolized by "++" (however, "++" is ...

from the

queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

and knight, sacrificing the queen to force the

next to the king, and mating with the knight. The technique is named after

François-André Danican Philidor François-André Danican Philidor (7 September 1726 – 31 August 1795), 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 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 as ...

–

Nigel Short Nigel David Short (born 1 June 1965) is an English chess grandmaster, columnist, coach, and commentator, who is the vice-president of FIDE since October 2018. Short earned the Grandmaster title at the age of 19, and was ranked third in the w ...

at the 1990

Tilburg Tilburg () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern province of North Brabant. With a population of 222,601 (1 July 2021), it is the second-largest city or municipality in North Brabant after Eindhoven and the seventh-larg ...

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 Opening may refer to: * Al-Fatiha, "The Opening", the first chapter of the Qur'an * The Opening (album), live album by Mal Waldron * Backgammon opening * Chess opening * A title sequence or opening credits * , a term from contract bridge * , ...

of a game. One of the most famous, and most frequently occurring, is in the

Budapest Gambit The Budapest Gambit (or Budapest Defence) is a chess opening that begins with the moves: :1. d4 Nf6 :2. c4 e5 Despite an early debut in 1896, the Budapest Gambit received attention from leading players only after a win as Black by Grandmast ...

. 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 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 It is also sometimes referred to as the Kostić Gambit af ...

" (named after the 19th-century English player

Joseph Henry Blackburne Joseph Henry Blackburne (10 December 1841 – 1 September 1924) was a British chess player. Nicknamed "The Black Death", he dominated the British scene during the latter part of the 19th century. Blackburne learned the game at the relatively late ...

, supposedly because he used it to win

shilling The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence o ...

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 The Caro–Kann Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves: :1. b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4, e4 b:Chess Opening Theory/1. e4/1...c6, c6 The Caro–Kann is a common defence against the King's Pawn Opening. It is classified as a Semi-Op ...

: 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 1983–88, 2006–08, and 2012–16) is the capital and largest city of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the Balearic Islands in Spain. It is situate ...

1935.

Examples from games

An example of a similar smothered mate in

master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

-level play is the game

Edward Lasker Edward Lasker (born Eduard Lasker) (December 3, 1885 – March 25, 1981) was a 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 of ...

–

Israel Horowitz Israel Albert Horowitz (often known as I. A. Horowitz or Al Horowitz) (November 15, 1907 – January 18, 1973) was an American International Master of chess. He is most remembered today for the books he wrote about chess. In 1989 he was induct ...

, 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 Unzicker– Sarapu, 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 Resignation is the formal act of leaving or quitting one's office or position. A resignation can occur when a person holding a position gained by election or appointment steps down, but leaving a position upon the expiration of a term, or choos ...

in light of 19...Rxg8 20.Nf7#.

References

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

Methods

Philidor's mate

Opening traps

Examples from games

See also

References