Pretty much the only difference is that in one the queen attacks down a horizontal (sometimes it can be a rook) for epaulettes while in a dovetail it is down a diagonal. If you look at the places the king could move to it forms a dove-like shape. Tada!
Epaulettes
Dovetail
so epaulettes horizontal, swallow/ dovetail can be diagonal? Thanks for your detailed response btw, really appreciated.
Wow! I've been playing for donkey's years and never even heard of these things. Is it useful to know these names?
Only if you like bragging about the form of checkmate you got I suppose :P Just kidding. But I just enjoy learning chess theory etc so I like the names :) Definitely useful to know the actual moves of the checkmates though.
EPIC BUMP
Just looking at this thread from the OP's profile. I think an epaulette mate is where the pieces are adjoining the king on both sides and a swallow's tail mate is where they are "behind" the king - indeed the difference is minimal:
Epaulette mate
Swallow's tail mate
Admittedly, this information has not been crossreferenced. It is just my personal feeling at two-thirty AM, maybe there is an easy to google description available somewhere.
Hi everyone,
Just been looking at some basic mating patterns and I noticed that epaulettes mate and swallow tail mate are very similar...in fact, i can't see a difference! Could someone please point out the subtlety or is swallow tail just a type of epaulettes mate?
Thanks
Nomad