All the Checkmate Patterns in Chess

Chess players have long understood how much checkmate patterns matter, those recurring piece configurations that let you actually finish a game. By grouping these mates by structure, generations of players have built up a shared library of typical positions. Every mating pattern helps you spot opportunities in your own games, whether you're just starting out or you've been playing for years. In this guide we'll walk through the most iconic checkmate patterns in chess and help you build a sharper eye for them on the board. If you're brand new to the game, start with our guide to how to play chess first, then come back here.

Here's what you'll find for each pattern.

• The mating pattern itself, shown on a diagram.
• A short explanation of how it works, and in several cases a famous game built around it.
• Often a bit of history about the player the mate is named after.

What Is a Checkmate Pattern in Chess?

A checkmate pattern is a specific arrangement of pieces that delivers checkmate to the enemy king. In other words, the attacking side has trapped the enemy king in a particular, recognizable way, distinctive enough to earn its own name. There are dozens of different chess mating patterns out there, and each one has its own telltale features.

The Checkmate Patterns You Should Know

Here are the common checkmate patterns worth knowing, plus a few rarer gems, presented in alphabetical order.

Anastasia's Mate

Here's Anastasia's Mate.

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This mate needs a knight to confine the enemy king to the h-file. A rook or queen then swoops in along that file to deliver the final blow.

Anderssen's Mate

Here's Anderssen's Mate.

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A rook comes into the corner of the board to deliver mate. It's backed up by a pawn, which is itself protected by another piece.

Arabian Mate

Next up, the Arabian Mate.

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This mate needs a rook and a knight working together. The rook sits right in front of the enemy king, and the knight defends the rook while also covering the king's only escape square.

Back-Rank Mate

Here's the Back-Rank Mate, one of the most famous patterns of them all.

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The black king is trapped on its own back rank (or file), and a heavy piece, a rook or queen, comes in to attack it along that line.

Blackburne's Mate

Here's Blackburne's Mate.

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This mate takes excellent coordination between the minor pieces, and there are several different versions of it. Here the light-squared bishop gives check from h7 while the dark-squared bishop covers h8, the king's only escape square, and the white knight protects the checking bishop.

Boden's Mate

Here's Boden's Mate, one of our favorite patterns.

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One bishop gives check while the other covers the enemy king's escape squares, along two criss-crossing diagonals. Pulling off a checkmate as pretty as Boden's Mate in your own games is a real pleasure.

Cozio's Mate (also known as the Dovetail Mate)

Here's a really elegant mating pattern, Cozio's Mate.

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The queen gives check to the enemy king diagonally, while another piece, here the white bishop, covers the king's escape squares.

Damiano's Mate

Here's Damiano's Mate.

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The queen delivers a Kiss of Death mate to the black king in its castled kingside position, supported by a pawn on g6.

Epaulette Mate

The Epaulette Mate looks like this.

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The black king, put in check, can't run because two of its own pieces are sitting right next to it, like a pair of epaulettes on its shoulders.

Fool's Mate

Here's Fool's Mate, the fastest possible checkmate in chess.

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Greco's Mate

Here's Greco's Mate.

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The black king is stuck in the corner of the board and can't escape because of the bishop. The queen then comes down the h-file to deliver checkmate.

Greek Gift Sacrifice

The Greek Gift Sacrifice is an essential attacking idea to know. It shows up constantly, especially in middlegames coming out of the French Defense. Here's the starting position for it, before any sacrifice has happened.

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Black's position looks perfectly solid at first glance. Look closer, though, and White has managed to plant a pawn on e5. That pawn hands White a real space advantage on the kingside and forces the black knight away from defending its own king. With the center closed, White goes on the attack.

1.Bxh7!!

1.Bxh7+ Kxh7 2.Ng5+ Kg8 3.Qh5, and White gets a promising, lasting attack for the piece, even though Black's best defense, 3...Nf6!, holds according to engine analysis. This exact idea comes up again and again whenever the black king has castled kingside with the h7 pawn defended only by its own king and no knight on f6, in plenty of openings well beyond this one. It's an attacking idea rather than a mating pattern in its own right, since the position it leads to depends on how the defender responds.

Kiss of Death Mate

A classic one now, the Kiss of Death Mate.

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With the enemy king trapped against the edge of the board, the queen steps right in front of it. Naturally, the queen needs to be protected by another piece, here the white king itself.

Ladder Mate (also called Lawnmower Mate)

Here's the Ladder Mate, genuinely useful in the late endgame when there aren't many pieces left on the board.

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One rook gives check to the king, and the other cuts off its escape. That's checkmate.

Légal's Mate

Here's Légal's Mate.

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This mate was played by Kermur de Légal in a famous game.

Lolli's Mate

Here's Lolli's Mate.

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The queen delivers a Kiss of Death mate right in the heart of Black's castled kingside position, supported by a pawn on f6.

Mayet's Mate

Here's Mayet's Mate.

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A rook comes into the corner of the board to check the enemy king. That rook is protected by a bishop on the long diagonal, and the same bishop also cuts off the king's escape. That's checkmate.

Morphy's Mate

Morphy's Mate is next.

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It takes excellent coordination between a rook and a bishop, and there are several different versions of this pattern.

Opera Mate

Here's the Opera Mate, a famous mating pattern from one of Paul Morphy's games.

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Pillsbury's Mate

Here's Pillsbury's Mate.

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It also needs good coordination between a rook and a bishop, but unlike Morphy's Mate, here it's the bishop that actually delivers the final blow.

Scholar's Mate

The famous Scholar's Mate looks like this.

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White's queen delivers a Kiss of Death mate on f7, easily the weakest square in the starting position since only the black king defends it. The queen is protected by the bishop. That's checkmate.

Smothered Mate

Here's the Smothered Mate.

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The black king is completely smothered by its own pieces and has no way to escape the white knight's check.

Stamma's Mate

Here's Stamma's Mate, a technique that's genuinely tricky to spot but well worth learning. This position isn't a finished checkmate. It's a study, White to play and win, using the king and knight to trap the black king in the corner, with its own rook pawn taking away its last escape square.

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See if you can work out the winning technique before moving on. The winning line is 1.Ne4! Ka1 2.Nc5 Ka2 3.Nd3 Ka1 4.Nc1 a2 5.Nb3#. Watch out for the natural-looking 1.Nb3?, though, which is actually an immediate stalemate, since Black is left with no legal move at all.

Swallow's Tail Mate (also known as Guéridon Mate)

On to the Swallow's Tail Mate.

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The king is put in check and can't escape because two of its own pieces are sitting right next to it, on adjacent diagonal squares.

Vukovic Mate

We'll close with the famous Vukovic Mate.

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A lovely bit of teamwork between the white pieces.

Where to Go From Here

That wraps up our guide to checkmate patterns in chess. We hope it helps you build the intuition to spot these patterns and land them in your own games. If it does, feel free to share it.

• Get the fundamentals down in our complete guide to how to play chess, from setting up the board to moving every piece.
• Brush up on the general rule in our guide to checkmate in chess.