A knight and a rook working as a pair. The knight lands on e7 and takes g8 and g6 away from the king, while the rook checks along the h-file. The king has nowhere to go: back along the line of the check is illegal, sideways runs into the knight, and g7 is occupied by his own pawn.
The name comes from the novel “Anastasia und das Schachspiel” by the German writer Wilhelm Heinse, published in 1803. In practice the pattern arises after a sacrifice: a queen or rook is given up to open the h-file and force the king to h7.
How to avoid it: if your opponent's knight has reached e7 or e2 and the h-file is about to open, move the king in advance or place your h-pawn so that the king keeps an escape square on the other side.
The clearest pattern of all: the king stands in the middle of the back rank with his own rooks beside him, like epaulettes on his shoulders. The queen steps right up and delivers mate, because the king simply has nowhere to run - all three squares in front are covered by the queen, and his own pieces block the sides.
The lesson is simple: your own pieces can be more dangerous than the enemy's. The classic situation is a castled king boxed in by his own rook and pawns - and one check of “where would he go if the queen came here?” saves the game.
The most famous mate in chess: the king is completely surrounded by his own pieces and a knight delivers mate by jumping over the whole defence. Hence the name - the king is smothered, with no room to breathe.
It is nearly always delivered the same way, through the famous queen sacrifice known as Philidor's Legacy: Nf7+ Kg8 Nh6+ Kh8 Qg8+! Rxg8 Nf7#. The queen is given up precisely to force the rook onto g8 and take the king's last square away.
How to avoid it: watch any enemy knight near your king, and make sure the king keeps a luft. The move h7-h6 at the right moment makes the whole pattern impossible.
Also known as the guéridon mate. The king is stuck in the centre, the queen steps up next to him protected by another piece, and the two squares behind the king are taken by his own rooks - the silhouette looks like a swallow's tail.
The key detail is the protection of the queen. Without the pawn on d3 the king would simply take her. That is why in this pattern you look not only for the queen's approach but also for the piece that will support her.
The basic two-rook technique every endgame course starts with. The rooks work in turn: one cuts the king off along a rank, the other checks on the next one, and the king is pushed step by step towards the edge of the board.
The main rule: never let the rooks come under attack from the king. If he steps too close, the rook simply slides along its rank to the far side of the board - and the ladder continues. The same technique works with a queen and a rook, only faster.
All the basic lone-king endings are covered in basic checkmates.
Not a pattern so much as a trap on inattention - but it has a name, and everyone falls for it once. White aims a bishop at c4 and the queen at h5, both pointing at f7: in the starting position that square is defended by the king alone. 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qh5 Nf6?? 4.Qxf7#.
The bishop matters more than the queen here: without the defence from c4 the king would simply eat her. One move cures it - 3...g6 chases the queen away, 3...Qe7 covers the square. Set the position up and push the pieces around: Scholar's mate on the board.
The only mate on this list named after a player: the Frenchman Kermur de Legal delivered it in Paris around 1750. White gives up the queen - and gives her up to a piece that is pinned and not allowed to take - then mates with three minor pieces.
The full game, the defensive tries and the usual mistakes are covered separately: Legal's mate.
Two bishops on criss-crossing diagonals. It falls on a king who has castled queenside: one bishop cuts along a6-c8, the other along f4-b8, and between them they cover everything left. The name comes from Schulder - Boden, played in London in 1853.
A sacrifice almost always comes first: the a6-c8 diagonal will not open by itself, so a piece is given up on b7 or c6. How to avoid it: after castling queenside, watch the b7 pawn and any enemy bishop eyeing it from a distance.
One of the oldest patterns of all - it was known in shatranj, the ancestor of modern chess, where the queen and bishop moved differently but rook and knight already worked exactly like this. Remember it as a pair: the rook checks, the knight insures.
Everything rests on the knight doing two jobs at once: taking a square away and shielding the rook. Remove the knight and there is no mate at all - the king just captures. Interactive position: the Arabian mate on the board.
The most common mate in practical play - and the most annoying way to lose a level position. The king stands behind an untouched wall of his own pawns, a heavy piece arrives on the back rank, and there is nowhere to step: his own pawns are in the way.
One quiet prophylactic move cures it: h7-h6 or g7-g6, an escape hatch made in advance. The habit saves more points than any memorised opening line. The position on the board: back-rank mate.
Queen and pawn against a castled king. The pawn reaches g6 and holds h7, the queen steps in next to the king, and she cannot be taken because the pawn defends her. Named after the Portuguese author Pedro Damiano, whose textbook appeared in 1512.
Classically a rook sacrifice on h7 comes first: it drags the h-pawn away and clears the square for the queen. Worth knowing from both sides - an enemy pawn that has reached g6 usually means a queen is already heading for h7.
The queen steps into the corner along a diagonal, backed up by a long-range piece from the other end of the board - a bishop or rook on the same line. Named after Adolf Anderssen, the strongest player of the mid-nineteenth century.
The whole construction is about that long diagonal. Which is why, against an opponent with a fianchettoed bishop, the habit of checking what sits on a1-h8 or h1-a8 is worth more than it looks.
A bishop and a rook with the work divided between them: the bishop checks along the a1-h8 diagonal while the rook holds the g-file, the only route the king could take. Named after Paul Morphy, in whose games the shape turned up more often than anyone else's.
The weak point is the long diagonal. If your opponent has a bishop aiming at a1-h8 and your knight has left f6, do not push the g7 pawn without a very good reason: once it goes, the diagonal opens all the way through.
The same two pieces with the roles reversed: the rook delivers mate down the open file while the bishop on the long diagonal takes the corner away. Harry Pillsbury produced the pattern regularly, which is where the name comes from.
Tell it apart from Morphy's mate by which piece gives the check: Morphy's is the bishop, Pillsbury's is the rook. For the defender that matters - one calls for blocking the diagonal, the other for shutting the file.
The name comes from the “opera game” Morphy played in 1858 in a box at the Paris opera against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard. The rook lands on the back rank; the bishop defends it and takes the king's diagonal escape away at the same time.
The rook is standing en prise, which is exactly why the bishop is not optional: without it the king simply takes. The shape almost always follows a sacrifice that rips the d-file open against a king still stuck in the centre.
A rook on the back rank plus a bishop closing the king's one escape hatch. It differs from the ordinary back-rank mate in that the hatch is there - the bishop on the b1-h7 diagonal takes it away.
Hence a practical lesson: one escape square is not always enough. If an enemy bishop sits on the b1-h7 diagonal, h7-h6 achieves nothing - there is still nowhere to step, and a second line of defence is needed.
Two bishops on neighbouring diagonals. One gives check, the other takes the square next door - between them they shoot the corner through. Unlike Boden's mate the diagonals do not cross here, they run parallel.
A pair of bishops is dangerous precisely in open positions - they need free diagonals. Trading one of them off at the first opportunity is almost always better than tolerating both for the sake of an extra pawn.
Two bishops and a knight. A bishop lands on h7 right beside the king, the knight defends it, and the second bishop takes the corner away from the long diagonal. Joseph Blackburne delivered this one by the dozen in simultaneous displays.
Three pieces doing three different jobs - take any one away and there is no mate. Which makes the defence clear enough: do not let a knight settle on g5 while the b1-h7 diagonal points at your king.
A queen on the h-file against a castled king whose own g7 pawn robs him of a square, with a bishop sealing the last free one. The shape comes from the manuscripts of Gioachino Greco, early seventeenth century - among the first recorded tactics manuals.
The queen stands far off and is therefore untouchable - unlike Damiano's mate, where she steps in close and is held by a single pawn. An open h-file next to the king almost always means a queen is already on her way.
Queen and pawn against kingside castling: the pawn reaches f6, the queen steps in to g7 and covers everything around the king. Analysed by Giambattista Lolli in his treatise of 1763.
The pairing of a pawn on f6 with the queen is one of the most common attacking combinations in practical play. A pawn that has reached f6 and survived is worth more than a piece: without it the queen on g7 is simply taken.
A rare case in which the queen never comes close. The bishop gives the check while the queen takes every square around the king from a distance - he ends up inside an empty ring. The name comes from fencing: a balestra is a hop followed by a lunge.
The construction needs no black pawns at all - the king dies on an empty board. Which is why it is dangerous in the endgame, where there is nothing left to block with and the king is routinely walked into the centre.
Rook and knight, except that the rook is held by a pawn rather than the knight. The rook steps in and checks, the knight takes both squares beside the king, the pawn defends the rook. The pattern was described by Vladimir Vuković in The Art of Attack in Chess.
It differs from the Arabian mate in who defends the rook: there it is the knight, here the pawn, while the knight is busy with squares. Which is why a pawn that has reached the sixth rank beside the king counts as a piece, not a detail.
A chain of three: the rook gives check, the knight defends the rook, the pawn defends the knight. Each one hangs off the previous - hence the hook.
The shape appears where the king has been chased out of his castled position into the middle of the board. It can only be broken from the far end - remove the pawn and the whole hook collapses, but by then there is usually nothing left to reach it with.
Rook and knight against a king locked into the corner by his own pawns. The knight checks from f7, the rook holds the eighth rank - and both pawns that were meant to shelter the king are working against him.
f7 is a dangerous square for a knight in general: from there it hits h8, d8 and h6 at once. If an enemy knight has crept to f7 and a rook has reached an open file, the escape hatch was needed several moves ago.
Two rooks on the seventh rank - a position chess players have long called “swine”. The nickname is crude but it stuck: the rooks sweep up everything in their path without discriminating. Mate follows in two moves and is usually impossible to prevent.
A simple rule follows: letting an enemy rook onto the seventh rank is dangerous, letting a second one in is not an option. One rook there merely eats pawns; two deliver mate.
They are all built from the same bricks: take squares away, let the defender's own pieces block his escape, bring the mating piece in with protection. The underlying motifs are covered in forks, pins and double attacks.
A mating pattern with a knight and a rook: the knight on e7 takes g8 and g6 away from the king while the rook checks along the h-file. The king on h7 can neither move along the line of the check nor step into the knight, and g7 is usually occupied by his own pawn.
A mate in which the king stands in the middle of a rank with his own rooks beside him, like epaulettes. The queen steps up and delivers mate: the squares in front are covered by the queen, and the king's own pieces block the sides.
Mate by a knight against a king completely surrounded by his own pieces. It is classically reached through a queen sacrifice known as Philidor's Legacy: Nf7+ Kg8 Nh6+ Kh8 Qg8+ Rxg8 Nf7#. The queen is given up to force the rook onto the last free square.
Also called the guéridon mate: the king is in the centre, the queen stands next to him protected by another piece, and the two squares behind the king are occupied by his own rooks. Without protection for the queen the pattern fails - the king simply takes her.
With two rooks in turn: one cuts the king off along a rank, the other checks on the next one, and the king is pushed to the edge of the board. If the king approaches a rook, that rook slides along its rank to the far side - the technique survives intact.
Mate with two bishops on criss-crossing diagonals, usually against a king who has castled queenside: one bishop cuts along a6-c8, the other along f4-b8. Named after Schulder - Boden, London 1853; a piece sacrifice to open the diagonal almost always comes first.
Mate with a rook and a knight in the corner, known since the days of shatranj. The rook checks from point-blank range while the knight simultaneously takes the king's escape square away and defends the rook, so the king cannot capture it.
Make an escape hatch in advance - push the h- or g-pawn in a quiet moment so the king has a square to step to. It is the most common mate in practical play, and the prophylaxis against it takes exactly one move.
Both use a bishop on the long diagonal and a rook, but a different piece gives the check: in Morphy's the bishop mates while the rook holds the file, in Pillsbury's it is the other way round - the rook mates and the bishop seals the corner. For the defender that is the whole difference: one calls for blocking the diagonal, the other for shutting the file.
Mate with a rook and knight in which the rook is defended by a pawn rather than the knight: the rook steps in and checks, the knight takes both squares beside the king, the pawn holds the rook. Described by Vladimir Vuković in The Art of Attack in Chess.
It is an old piece of chess slang: a pair of rooks on the seventh sweeps up pawns without discriminating and then mates in two. One rook there is dangerous, two are usually fatal - which is why the second one must never be allowed in.
A chain of three pieces: the rook checks at point-blank range, the knight defends the rook, the pawn defends the knight - hence the hook. The only way to break it is to remove the pawn, and by then there is rarely anything left to do it with.
So you see the shape instead of recalculating from scratch. Once you have recognised a pattern, you start noticing it in your own games - both when you are attacking and when your own king is walking into it.
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Basic endings - basic checkmates. Tactics - forks, pins and double attacks. Rules - rules of chess. A famous trap - Legal's Mate.
At the board since childhood: hazy about his rating, precise about every rook he has blundered. Counts an evening as a good one if the opponent stayed to talk afterwards instead of rushing off to check with an engine. Message →
