Damiano's Mate

Damiano's mate is a classic method of checkmating and one of the oldest. It works by confining the king with a pawn and using a queen to initiate the final blow. Damiano's mate is often arrived at by first sacrificing a rook on the h-file, then checking the king with the queen on the h-file, and then moving in for the mate.

The checkmate was first published by Pedro Damiano in 1512. In Damiano's publication he failed to place the white king on the board which resulted in it not being entered into many chess databases due to their rejection of illegal positions.

The following game between Carl Ahues and Sultan Khan ends in a Damiano's mate threat.

Malik Mir Sultan Khan (1905 – April 25, 1966) was the strongest chess master of his time from Asia. A manservant from British India, he traveled with Colonel Nawab Sir Umar Hayat Khan ("Sir Umar"), his master, to Britain, where he took the chess world by storm. In an international chess career of less than five years (1929–33), he won the British Championship three times in four tries (1929, 1932, 1933), and had tournament and match results that placed him among the top ten players in the world.

Carl Oscar Ahues (12/26/1883-12/31/1968) was a German Chess International Master. He was Berlin Champion in 1910 and German Champion in 1929 winning the 26th DSB Congress in Duisberg. His son Herbert Ahues is a famous Grandmaster of Chess Compositions.