Checkmate patterns
The corner mate
A knight covers the flight square and a rook delivers mate to a king trapped in the corner by its own pawns. Close cousin of the Arabian mate and of the back rank mate, and worth knowing as its own picture because the knight is what makes the rook's arrival safe.
How to spot it
King in the corner, its own pawn or piece on the square beside it, and a knight of yours within one move of the square that covers the escape. Then any rook reaching the back rank or the h-file mates, which is what makes deflecting the defender worth a queen.
The positions
Easiest first. Every one is from a real game, and the rating under each board is what it costs the players who have tried it on lichess.
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1. Black to play Play it out →Answer
38...g1=N#
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2. White to play Play it out →Answer
36.Rxg7+ Kh5 37.Nf6#
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3. Black to play Play it out →Answer
30...Rg1+ 31.Rxg1 Nf2#
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4. Black to play Play it out →Answer
11...Qxf2+ 12.Kd1 Nc3#
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5. White to play Play it out →Answer
28.Rxf7+ Rxf7 29.Qg6+ Kh8 30.Nxf7#
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6. White to play Play it out →Answer
22.Nxh6+ gxh6 23.Qg6+ Kh8 24.Nf7#
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7. White to play Play it out →Answer
21.Rxf7+ Rxf7 22.Qg6+ Kh8 23.Nxf7#
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8. Black to play Play it out →Answer
33...Ng3#
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9. White to play Play it out →Answer
16.Rxe7+ Rxe7 17.Qxf6+ Kg8 18.Nxe7#
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10. Black to play Play it out →Answer
29...Rh4+ 30.Kxh4 Qg5+ 31.Kh3 Nf4#
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11. Black to play Play it out →Answer
25...Rxg2+ 26.Kh1 Rg1+ 27.Kxg1 Qg5+ 28.Kf1 Qg2+ 29.Ke1 Nxf3#
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12. White to play Play it out →Answer
23.Nd6+ Bxd6 24.Nd8#
Reading about a pattern is the easy half. Motify finds the positions where you missed one, by running your own lichess and Chess.com games through Stockfish, and puts each of them behind two or three puzzles on the same idea so you meet it having just found it three times. See how Motify works.
Positions from the lichess puzzle database, released under CC0.