Scholar's mate Bibliography Scholar's mate In chess, Scholar's Mate is the checkmate achieved by the following moves, or similar: The same mating pattern may be reached by various move orders. For example, White might play 2.Qh5, or Black might play 2...Bc5. In all variations, the basic idea is the same: the queen and bishop combine in a simple mating attack on f7 (or f2 if Black is performing the mate). Scholar's Mate is sometimes referred to as the "Four-Move Checkmate", although there are other ways to checkmate in four moves. Unlike Fool's Mate, which rarely occurs at any level, games ending in
Smothered mate Kg8 28.Nh6++ Kh8 (28...Kf8 29.Qf7#) 29.Qg8+! Nxg8 (or 29...Rxg8) 30.Nf7 still mates.) This technique is so common as to have its own name: "Philidor's Mate" or "Philidor's Legacy" (after François-André Danican Philidor). This is something of a misnomer, however, as it is earlier described in Luis Ramirez Lucena's 1497 text on chess, "Repetición de Amores e Arte de Axedrez", which predates Philidor by several hundred years. Occasionally, a smothered mate may be possible in the opening of a game. One of the most famous, and most frequently occurring, is in the Budapest Gambit. It arises after 1. d4 Nf6 2.