Scholar's mate 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 Scholar's
Late Move Reductions Late Move Reductions In computer chess, and in other games that computers play, Late Move Reductions (LMR) is a non-game specific enhancement to the alpha-beta algorithm and its variants which attempts to examine a game search tree more efficiently. It uses the assumption that good game-specific move ordering causes a program to search the most likely moves early. If a cut-off is going to happen in a search, the first few moves are the ones most likely to cause them. In games like chess, most programs search winning captures and "killers" first. LMR will reduce the search depth for moves