Secrets of Trapping Pieces: Pillsbury's Mate

This is NOT a post about how to make a chess board and pieces using cookie dough or some other pastry confection of your choice. No, no, no! You can learn about that in your average cookbook. 

Having established what this post is not, let's talk about what it is. In this blog one of your rooks delivers a fatal, crushing blow to the enemy king with an assist from one of your bishops (or perhaps a queen) and the able assistance of enemy forces! The primary purpose of this blog is to allow you to test your skills in applying Pillsbury's mate, not just trapping the King but putting an end to his miserable existence with some kindly, if inadvertently traitorous, assistance from his pieces. In some instances, you will need to trick his pieces into serving in the traitor's role. The puzzles range from very easy to...well, it took a strong player to see this over the board. And in some cases, miss it! 

The puzzles are provided after a brief discussion of a typical configuration of pieces that comprise Pillsbury's mate. You can skip the discussion and go directly to the puzzles by scrolling past the picture below.

Note that I prefer the phrase Pillsbury's configuration. Why? Because the mere threat of the configuration may be sufficient to compel significant concessions from the opponent. Concessions that may be sufficient to state that the game is effectively over. But I did not find a sufficiently compelling example to include here. Or perhaps I just found so many examples of an actual Pillsbury's mate that I stopped searching. 😉

Diagram of a Typical Pillsbury's Mate
The top diagram depicts some typical Pillsbury's mate configurations. In this mating pattern, the rook delivers mate while a bishop (occasionally a queen fills the role of the bishop as seen in the lower-left-hand corner) prevents the king from escaping diagonally. The remaining escape squares are filled by traitors to the king, his pieces blocking a hasty exit.

Often a rook sacrifice takes place before mate is delivered. Below is a dramatically simplified example.

Occasionally the bishop moves to expose the action of the rook along the file and deliver mate. Below is a simplified example.

Let the Puzzles Begin!
Brigitte von Herman - Elke Schmid, FRG U16 Girls, 10.09.1983
Brigitte von Herma is a German WFM born in 1967. Her peak ELO was 2019 in September 2009.

Elke Schmid is a German chess player born in 1965. She only appears in this single game in the ChessBase DB and is otherwise a cypher.

The conclusion to this game, on the other hand, should not prove puzzling at all if you looked at the structure of a typical Pillsbury's mate.

Hope you moved the bishop the shortest distance possible to complete the problem 🤪. It would be so nice to have a feature that allows alternative moves, chess.com!!

Frank Buchenau (2222) - Marc Llari (2110) Titled Tuesday early 18.07.2023
Frank Buchenau is a German FM born in 1967. His peak rating of 2350 was achieved in 1988. His peak rating has dipped to 2180 as of August 2024.

Marc Llari is a French CM born in 2014! He was the U8 World CC! Of course, it doesn't hurt that his father is a chess coach, and his mother is a chess teacher. He crossed the 2000 FIDE rating level at age eight. His peak rating of 2226 was achieved in June of this year but has dropped two points since then.

White's king has taken quite the victory march. Black just captured the white queen on e7 as a last gesture of defiance. That is akin to a mouse flipping off the great horned owl swooping in on the rodent.  It's your time to respond to such mocking flippancy.

In good news, the bishop found its path to e5 blocked by its own pawn. So, there was only one correct, fastest solution. Unlike the situation encountered in the previous problem where there is no ability to accept an equally good move. Not that I'm harping on the subject, or anything. 😉

Vladimir Drkulec - Don Vandivier, Detroit-ch MI M/X, 1994
Vladimir (aka Vlado) Drkulec is a Canadian chess player, tournament organizer, and arbiter born in 1958. He achieved a peak Canadian rating of 2236 in October 2010. His FIDE ELO rating had declined to 1855 by December 2022, until the recent FIDE adjustments raised his rating to 1913.

Don Vandivier is an American chess player born in 1947. In November 2001 he achieved his peak rating of 2017.

White has many ways to win. But the best move was played, provoking a game-ending response by Black. Can you find White's move?

In this case, the first move was far and away the best move. There were "good" alternatives, but best visually and by computer test was the appealing rook lift.

Evarth Kahn (2270) - Dragos Ciornei (2165) Budapest FS10 IM-B, 16.10.1997
Doctor Evarth Kahn is a Hungarian IM born in 1972. He achieved his peak rating of 2400 in 1995, but his rating began to drop precipitously beginning in 2020. As of September 2024, he is rated only 1958.

Doctor Dragos Ciornei is a German chess player born in 1969. He achieved his peak rating of 2275 in 1993. He has also experienced a decline in rating, but still maintains a 2074 rating as of September 2024.

Black just went up a piece by capturing a bishop on d7. I could understand that in bullet, perhaps in blitz. But this was a standard time control. What did Black totally overlook?

White breathes a sigh of relief. They were almost out of pieces.

Pontus Carlsson (2436) - Miroslav Smid (2214) Prague Pankrac Cup 20.09.2016
Pontus Carlsson is a Swedish GM born in 1982. His stepfather taught him the game when he was four. His peak rating was 2531 in May 2012, but his rating has declined to 2450 as of September 2024.

Miroslav Smid is a Czech Republic chess player born in 1983. His peak rating was 2278 in April 2018. His rating has declined to 2184 as of May 2024.

Black is a full Queen ahead. Should White resign?

Well, isn't that a pretty picture! Black is up a queen and an exchange, plus White's first rank is undefended. All for naught. As in the big zero on Black's side of the scoresheet, 1-0.

Viktor Varadi - Laszlo Ats, Providencia Open 1997
Viktor Varadi is a Hungarian IM born in 1982. He achieved his peak rating of 2443 in March 2008 and is still rated 2358 as of September 2024.

Laszlo Ats is a Hungarian chess player born in 1975. They achieved their peak rating of 2182 in November 2006 but that has gradually declined to 1884 as of September 2024.

Poor White. They were winning for over twenty moves but have thrown away the game. Now they are understandably a bit anxious to curtail that furious attack. White instead throws the game away immediately by forcing a trade of queens.

Mistakes and blunders find a winning position laid to waste. All those passed pawns now depart in haste. 

Igor Saric (2320) - Ioannis Papadatos, Aegina Open 1994
Igor Saric is an FM from Montenegro. Born in 1973 he achieved his peak ELO rating of 2340 In June 1911. His rating has slipped a bit since then, falling back to 2259 in May of 2024. His rapid rating is still in the 2300s at 2324.

Ioannis Papadatos is a Greek CM. Born in 1965 he achieved his peak ELO rating of 2205 in September 2007. By August 2024 that had trickled down to 1974.

White optimistically traded queens, perhaps hoping the bishop pair would give them a good endgame after Black recaptured on g6. Black's response left them shell-shocked.

So much for a queen trade reducing the opponent's attacking power.

George MacDonnell - Samuel Boden, London Int 1869 #1
George MacDonnell was an Anglican clergyman and chess master. A very strong master, he walloped George Mackenzie in two matches and shared 1st with Wilhelm Steinitz at Dublin 1865.

Samuel Boden was an English master. Boden's mate is named after him for a game played in 1853...even though the pattern had been seen in a game nine years earlier. I need this guy's press agent! Paul Morphy opined that Boden was the strongest English master of that time.

We are going to explore several versions of this game to point out how several ideas can interconnect to entirely dismantle the enemy's game.

Traitors and overloaded defenders doom another king stuck on the g1 square.

George MacDonnell - Samuel Boden, London Int 1869 #2

Did your visualization skills allow you to pick up the thread and reach the grand finale from MacDonnell - Boden #1? Good on you!!

George MacDonnell - Samuel Boden, London Int 1869 #3
In the game Black played 23...Rxd4! See if you can find an improvement.

What can I say. Even great games can often be improved upon.

Adolf Anderssen - Berthold Suhle, Casuals, Breslau 1859
Adolf Anderssen was a German chess master born in 1818. He was considered the world's leading chess player from 1851 to 1858, when he lost a match to Paul Morphy. Known best for phenomenal sacrifices, his play is forever engraved in the pantheon of chess brilliancies, beginning with his scintillating play in the 1851 Immortal Game and the 1852 Evergreen Game. Idiosyncratically, he is also known for the opening named after him 1. a3.

Berthold Suhle was a German chess master born in 1837. A cusp baby par excellence given he was born the first day of the year--in with the new! He also lost a match to Anderssen in Cologne in 1859, the year of this match in Breslau. But in 1864 he managed to draw with his tormentor, 3W-2D-3L. He authored several chess books and was the co-editor of Deutsche Schachzeitung (German Chess Magazine). He stopped playing in 1877 to assume full-time teaching duties.

Black just played 17...Nc5. That brought the knight off the rim and attacked White's powerful dark-squared bishop. How did Anderssen end the game?

Pillsbury's mate. And supposedly the origin of this mating pattern. Why not "Anderssen's mate?" I have no clue.

Harry Pillsbury - Charles Newman, Philadelphia blindfold simul, 1900.04.28
Harry Nelson Pillsbury was an American chess player born in 1872 who died intolerably young, aged only 33. In 1892 he beat World CC Steinitz in a 3-game match…but while receiving odds of a pawn. His greatest victory was toppling the rest of the field to claim victory in the 1895 Hastings chess tournament. In doing so he finished ahead of Emanuel Lasker, Steinitz, Chigorin, Gunsberg, Tarrasch, Schlechter, and Janowski. He won the US CC in 1897 and retained the title until his death in 1906.

Charles John Newman was an American chess player born in 1856 who died in 1903. He was more than just another victim in this game lost while Pillsbury was playing a blindfold simul. Newman also participated in multiple England – USA cable matches from 1899 – 1903.

Can you see the brilliant move that the blindfolded Pillsbury overlooked?

Cute. Fianchettoed rooks on the opposite end of a long diagonal.

We've reached the end. Hope you found it challenging enough to be enjoyable. Let me know if you found any mistakes and whether you enjoyed this. I know I have fun finding the examples and putting them through the wringer to see what I learn along the way. If you did enjoy it and would like to see others, there are links to the Secrets of Trapping Pieces series proffered below. And I'll be posting another in this series four weeks from today.

Meantime, I have my own theories about the original Pillsbury's mate. As you'll see below. Cheers! Just another idiot.

Related blogs: You can find an entire series of blogs about trapping various pieces at: 
Knight

Bishop

Rook

King

Miscellaneous

Secrets of Trapping Pieces: A Beautiful Loss
Secrets of Trapping Pieces: Said the Spider to the Fly
Secrets of Trapping Pieces: My Experience Writing a Chess Book 
My Experiences Writing a Second Book – "Secrets of Trapping Pieces: Fundamentals" 
SUCCESS!! Publication of my "Secrets of Trapping Pieces: Fundamentals"