Smothered Grasshoppers for Breakfast
Introduction
We have come so far in this series, and it’s time to end it, with a little more mate, and a special Grasshopper Smothered Mate!
Let’s add more Grasshoppers!
You think that you can checkmate with 4 Grasshoppers? Well, you can’t. (Wait, WHAT?) Think about the pairs. There are 3 places next to the opposing King to check at, so there must be a maximum of 6 impacting Grasshoppers. Two of those spaces are taken, but there is always one flight square for the King. (Work it out!) If your King protects that flight square, then the opposing King captures one of your Grasshoppers. Note that you can think that there can be more protecting Grasshoppers, but how will you ever get to that position?
UPDATE: You can do it with 3.
And the Finale-the Grasshopper Smothered Mate!
Are you ready to see the last thing put in this series? Here it is!
Black has just played Bh2, invading White, but do you notice that the Rook on g8 is pinned by the Rook on f8, and the Pawn on g7 is pinned by the Bishop on b2? That means that between the pieces surrounding the Black King, only the h7 Pawn can move, and if you put a piece right in front of it, it can’t move, and if that’s check, it’s also checkmate. Gh6 is checkmate, another beautiful example of cooperating pieces.
The end of the end
We’ve just reached the end of the series. I hope you enjoyed the 14 blogs about the Grasshopper and what it can do. See you in a different blog!
