Smothered Mate

Smothered mate is a way of checkmating your opponent by turning their own pieces aginst their king. You will need to use sacrifice to perform smothered mate. Here is an example from a game I played. My opponent did not decide correctly which piece to capture. He must have thought,"Oh look! A free bishop."How foolish. Check this game out!

After Rxg8?, the king is surrounded by material. It is immobilized by its own pieces. And since the defense has been lifted off f7, white can checkmate with the knight.

Now that you have learned the basics, let's try to solve some easy puzzles.

Hint:It doesn't really matter which piece Black captures with: the result will be checkmate.

Hint:For this, you will have to pick the right piece to capture with to avoid smothered mate.

Hint:Sacrifice the knight on f3.

Thank you for learning smothered mate with me!