Chess Corner - Checkmating Nets

In the last two columns, I discussed some tactics that are not usually used for checkmating your opponent. In this week’s column, I will show some checkmating tactics. These tactics are called checkmating nets (or sometimes checkmating patterns).

Frank J Simutis III

A support mate: White's guarded queen checkmates Black's king.

Frank J Simutis III

A back-rank mate: White's rook attacks the h-file.

Frank J Simutis III

When Black's knight takes White's f-pawn, this is a smothered mate.

Frank J Simutis III

A crisscross mate: White's bishop and queen attack crossing diagonals.

Frank J Simutis III

This week's puzzle: White to move and mate in two.

One of the most common checkmating nets is the support mate. You need two units for a support mate to be successful. One of the units is directly next to the king. This unit’s job is to attack the king and guard any escape routes to which the king could move. The second unit ‘supports’ the piece by defending it. See the first position above. White’s queen is attacking Black’s king, and Black’s king has nowhere to go. However, the pawn is just as important. If it weren’t there, Black’s king could easily get out of the situation by taking White’s queen. When you are setting up a support mate, you must make sure that nothing besides the king is attacking your first unit. Support mates can be very sneaky, so watch out for them in your games!

Another checkmating net is the back-rank mate. See the second position above. Black’s king is on the back rank and is trapped by his own pawns. White has moved his rook to e8. This attacks the king and the ‘escape squares’ f8 and h8. This is a back-rank mate. There aren’t nearly as many positions that are back-rank mates as there are support mates. But back-rank mates can be just as sneaky. There are two ways to avoid back-rank mates: placing a rook or queen on the back rank to defend it, or moving one of the three pawns in front of your king up one square. Remember: Back-rank mates can be sneaky, and can come out of nowhere, so be sure to watch out for them.

The smothered mate is a mate only the knight can perform, because its power to jump over pieces and pawns is needed. In a smothered mate, the defeated king is in the corner, surrounded by his own pieces, while the opponent’s knight attacks the king from outside its barrier. See the third diagram above. This is the most common smothered mate; Black’s knight can take White’s unguarded f-pawn (1. Nxf2#), which is checkmate because Black’s king has nowhere to move. Smothered mate is just one of the many checkmates that takes advantage of one fact: the king is in the corner. If your king is in the corner, it is instantly weaker, because it has five fewer escape squares than it would if is was in the center. Smothered mate also takes advantage of the defeated king being surrounded by his own forces, as does the back-rank mate.

The crisscross mate is a mating net where only the bishops and queen can be used. Look at the fourth diagram above carefully and you’ll see that the king has nowhere to go. The diagonals that White’s bishop and queen attack both crisscross each other, and the queen attacks the h-file as well. If you are planning a crisscross mate, you always need to take the color of your bishop into account. If White had a dark-squared bishop instead of his light-squared one, he would have to checkmate Black in the other corner.

These four mating nets are only a few of the hundreds of mating nets there are. Mating nets are worth studying, because checkmating your opponent is the goal of the game.

Before you make any move, no matter how sure or unsure you are about it, you always need to ask yourself this question: “If I do this move, what will be my opponent’s most likely reply?” Asking yourself this question can help you make a successful plan for action. Try doing this in this week’s puzzle. It is White to move and checkmate Black in two moves.

Answer to last week’s puzzle: Black would love to move his knight to f3, but a rook and bishop both guard that square. So Black must play, 1…. Qxf1+!!, which is both a destruction and a deflection. The rook is gone, and after a forced 2. Bxf1, the bishop is no longer defending f3 either. Black then plays 2… Nf3 without further ado. Later in a future column, I will show you the blunder White made that caused this checkmate.