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Checkmate patterns

The kill box mate

A rook checks along a rank or file and a queen, standing a knight's move away, covers everything around the king. Between them they make a three-by-three box the king cannot leave, and every square in it is covered.

How to spot it

Queen and rook working together on an open board is the setup, and the geometry is worth memorising: the queen wants to be two files and one rank from the checking rook. If the king has been driven towards the edge, look for the square that completes the box before you look for a check.

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.

  1. 1. Black to play Rated 1292
    Answer

    33...Qh5+ 34.g4 Qxg4#

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  2. 2. White to play Rated 1375
    Answer

    28.Qc6+ Qc7 29.Ra8#

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  3. 3. White to play Rated 1476
    Answer

    30.Rxg7+ Kxg7 31.Qf6+ Kg8 32.Rh8#

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  4. 4. Black to play Rated 1597
    Answer

    28...Rd1+ 29.Kh2 Bxg3+ 30.Kxg3 Qe5+ 31.Kg4 Qf4+ 32.Kh5 Qh4+ 33.Kg6 Rd6+ 34.Kf5 Qf4#

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  5. 5. White to play Rated 1694
    Answer

    27.h7+ Kg7 28.Qf6+ Kxh7 29.Rh1+ Kg8 30.Rh8#

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  6. 6. White to play Rated 1755
    Answer

    28.Rxh6+ Kxh6 29.Qf6+ Kh7 30.Rh1+ Bh2 31.Rxh2+ Kg8 32.Rh8#

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  7. 7. Black to play Rated 1883
    Answer

    30...Qf4+ 31.Kh1 Rxh3+ 32.gxh3 Rxh3+ 33.Kg2 Rh2#

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  8. 8. White to play Rated 2048
    Answer

    23.Rxg6+ Kf8 24.Rxf7+ Kxf7 25.Qf5+ Ke7 26.Rg7+ Kd6 27.Rd7#

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  9. 9. White to play Rated 2128
    Answer

    37.Qxf6+ Ke8 38.Rc8+ Kd7 39.Qf5+ Re6 40.Qxe6#

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  10. 10. White to play Rated 2213
    Answer

    35.Bg7+ Kxg7 36.Rf7#

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  11. 11. Black to play Rated 2329
    Answer

    27...Qg2+ 28.Kxe3 Re8+ 29.Kd2 Rxe2+ 30.Kc3 Qg7+ 31.Nf6+ Qxf6+ 32.d4 Qxd4+ 33.Kb3 Rb2#

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  12. 12. Black to play Rated 2397
    Answer

    38...Qf2+ 39.Kc3 Ra3+ 40.Kb4 Qc5#

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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.