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An enemy pawn or a piece other than a knight is used to restrict the enemy king's movement. It is a type of Anderssen's mate and closely resembles Mayet's mate. The checkmate was named after its implementation by Paul Morphy in 1858 at a game at the Paris opera against Duke Karl of Brunswick and Count Isouard; see Opera game.
Since many pieces (pawn, lance, knight, silver) can all promote to gold-like piece, checkmate by a gold is usual. Because of the relative ease of mating with a gold compared to other pieces, it is often advantageous to keep a gold in hand during the endgame so that a mate with a dropped gold can be executed.
A checkmate may occur in as few as two moves on one side with all of the pieces still on the board (as in fool's mate, in the opening phase of the game), in a middlegame position (as in the 1956 game called the Game of the Century between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer), [3] or after many moves with as few as three pieces in an endgame position.
Fool's mate was named and described in The Royal Game of Chess-Play, a 1656 text by Francis Beale that adapted the work of the early chess writer Gioachino Greco. [2]Prior to the mid-19th century, there was not a prevailing convention as to whether White or Black moved first; according to Beale, the matter was to be decided in some prior contest or decision of the players' choice. [3]
Pure mate is one of a few terms used by composers to describe the properties of a checkmate position; related concepts include economical mate, model mate, and ideal mate. An economical mate is a position such that all of the attacker's pieces [a] contribute to the checkmate, with the (optional) exception of the king and the pawns.
Back-rank checkmate – checkmate accomplished by a rook or queen on the opponent's first rank, because the king is blocked in by its own pieces (almost always pawns) on its second rank. Bishop and knight checkmate – fundamental checkmate with a minimum amount of material. It is notoriously difficult to achieve.
A mating pattern where a pinned knight moves, allowing the capture of the player's queen but leading to a checkmate with three minor pieces, occasionally occurs at lower levels of play, though masters would not normally fall for it. According to Bjerke (Spillet i mitt liv), the Légal Trap has ensnared countless unwary players. One author ...
In the Frankenstein–Dracula Variation of the Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4), threatening checkmate with 4.Qh5 is the only way for White to play for an advantage. The Modern Defense, Monkey's Bum variation involves White threatening a Scholar's mate with an early Qf3.