Scholar's mate
Name in other languages
After 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 (the Two Knights Defense), White's most popular continuation is 4.Ng5 attacking f7, which is awkward for Black to defend. The Fried Liver Attack even involves a sacrifice of the knight on f7. In the Frankenstein–Dracula Variation of the Vienna Game (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4), threatening Scholar's Mate with 4.Qh5 is the only way for White to play for an advantage. The Danvers Opening (1.e4 e5 2.Qh5) and the Napoleon Opening (1.e4 e5 2.Qf3) are both aimed at threatening Scholar's Mate on the next move (3.Bc4). Although the Napoleon Opening is never seen in high-level competition, Danvers Opening has occasionally been tried in tournaments by GM Hikaru Nakamura to achieve a practical middlegame position for White. In some languages, including Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, French, German, Czech, Latvian, Portuguese, Spanish and Turkish: Shepherd's Mate In Italian: Barber's Mate In Persian, Greek and Arabic: Napoleon's Plan In Belorussian, Latvian, Russian and Ukrainian : Children's Mate In Croatian, Danish, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Polish (where Fool's Mate is known as Scholar's Mate), Slovakian and Slovenian: Shoemaker's Mate In Danish, Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian: School Mate Scholar's Mate has sometimes also been given other names in English, such as Schoolboy's Mate (which in modern English perhaps better connotes the sense of 'novice' intended by the word Scholar's) and Blitzkrieg (German for "lightning war"), meaning a quick and short engagement (Kidder 1960).
Scholar's mate-10