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Practice the Smothered Mate here!

Bernard2015

Sep 24, 2020, 4:49 PM | 2

The Smothered Mate

The smothered Mate is basically delivered by a sole knight. It happens when the king is completely surrounded by its own pieces and has no escape route. This checkmate pattern makes use of the knight's ability to jump over pieces. Have a look at the two examples below and try out the puzzles provided to make sure you have mastered this checkmate!

As you can see the White king is completely smothered by its own pieces and has no escape route once the knight comes around. Note that the bishop is pinned by the queen.

Try out the following puzzles! How fast can you solve them?

Below is the basic pattern of the smothered mate. (basically played by Paul Morphy who first used it). Try solving it and see if your vision is as good as Morphy's before scrolling down for the answer! (You may have come across this basic pattern)

Answer:

Can you solve the following puzzle?

In this case, White is down a lot of material. Even though the king does not look like he's smothered, how can the knight save the day?

White is a knight up. How can he use this advantage to checkmate Black?

White is down by two rooks for a bishop, but White can force checkmate. How?

This puzzle below is adapted from lichess.org. It is quite dangerous to have a knight hovering around your king, but what if there are two? How can Black use this advantage to checkmate White? Note that, forced moves are important or White would checkmate Black first.

This puzzle is also adapted from lichess.org.

Practice the Smothered Mate here!

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