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
First-move advantage in chess "... with perfect play, God versus God ... chess is a draw". Lasker and Capablanca both worried that chess would suffer a "draw death" as top-level players drew more and more of their games. More recently, Fischer agreed, saying that the game has become played out. All three advocated changing the rules of chess to minimize the number of drawn games. Lasker suggested scoring less than half a point for a draw, and more than half a point for stalemating the opponent's king. Capablanca in the 1920s proposed Capablanca Chess, a chess variant played on a larger board and with