Secrets of Trapping Pieces: Damiano's Mate

The primary purpose of this blog is to allow you to test your skills in applying Damiano’s Mate, not just trapping the King but putting an end to His Majesty. The puzzles range from very easy to...well, it took a very strong player to see this over the board. The puzzles are provided after some brief discussion of some typical configurations of pieces that constitute an example of Damiano’s Mate. You can skip the discussion and go directly to the puzzles by scrolling past the picture further below.

Damiano’s Mate was first published by Pedro Damiano in 1512.  Oversimplified, the idea is to first restrict the enemy King's potential flight squares with a pawn and then deliver mate with the Queen. 

We begin with some diagrams showing some typical features of the Damiano’s Mate...though I prefer to term it Damiano’s Configuration. My reasoning being that the mere threat of an Damiano’s Configuration. may be sufficient to compel significant concessions from the opponent. Perhaps even concessions sufficient to state that the game is effectively over from a technical perspective. The puzzle Shen - Karavade points to the value of realizing that a mate threat can be almost as powerful as an actual mate!

Diagrams of some typical Damiano’s Mates
I do want to point out that Damiano's Mate and Lolli's Mate are nigh on indistinguishable. Note that in the diagrams below the Queen is delivering mate while located on the seventh rank and one square diagonally from the doomed King. In Lolli's Mate, explored in the next blog in this series, the Queen delivers mate while on the seventh rank directly facing Her victim. And, of course, She is protected by one of Her pawns in both these mating configurations.

These are minimalist positions to point out the most salient, readily observable features that might suggest to you that Damiano's Mate is a possibility. In a real game there would generally be other pieces on the board, so we need to train our eyes to observe the mere outlines of this mating configuration and then calculate to determine if it is achievable.

Diagram 1.  
Bottom right-hand corner. Clearly the Queen just slid along the h-file to deliver mate on h2. Note how the traitorous white Rook on f1 prevents the King from fleeing while the black g-pawn controls the f2 square.
Upper left-hand corner. White is threatening to play Rc8+, forcing Black's Queen to capture the Rook. After which White will deliver mate on a7. Aided and abetted by the black Queen who now plays a traitor's role by blocking the black King's flight to the c8 square.

Diagram 2. 
Bottom right-hand corner. Black threatens to play ...Rh1+. Because black's g-pawn controls the f2 square and white's g-pawn prevents flight to that square White would have to capture the Rook. Then the black Queen could slide to h5 or d8 and chase the white King back to g1. After which Black would deliver mate on h2 with the Queen. 

Upper left-hand corner. A frequently seen occurrence surprisingly. White will sacrifice one or both Rooks on a8 and then deliver mate on a7. Note that if White had a Pawn, for instance, on b3, then White would indeed have to sacrifice both Rooks to deliver mate as a pawn on b3 would prevent White from delivering a check by playing Qa4+ after the first Rook is sacrificed on a8. It is also noteworthy that Black's Queen could be replaced with a Rook or Bishop and the outcome would remain unchanged.

Diagram 3. 
A frequent visitor to this configuration. A Rook controls the f-file, thereby preventing the white King from fleeing after the black Queen delivers mate on h2. Note that a black Bishop or Knight controlling the f1 square would prove equally effective, given that Black's g-pawn prevents His Majesty from fleeing via f2.