Skip to content

Smothered mate

A smothered mate is checkmate by a knight against a king boxed in by its own pieces. The knight jumps to the mating square, and the king cannot capture it because its own pieces occupy the neighbors, or because the knight is protected.

The classic pattern is a king in the corner, a friendly rook or pawn on the next square, and a knight that can reach the square beside the king with check. A queen sacrifice on the edge is the usual way to force the king into that box.

Source database: 24,332 puzzles with this tag. This trainer: 151.

8

7

6

5

4

3

2

a1

b

c

d

e

f

g

h

Puzzle rating 856 · played 2,443 times in the source set

Find the move.

Solved in a row: 0. The next puzzle stays near rating 1,400.

Progress stays in this browser. Where the puzzles come from.

By rating band

These band pages are not indexed. They keep the same theme and fix the rating range.

beginner13,132 in the source database · 36 on the page easy8,853 in the source database · 36 on the page intermediate2,240 in the source database · 36 on the page hard100 in the source database · 36 on the page