Checkmate patterns
The swallowtail mate
A supported queen mates a king whose two escape squares are taken by its own pieces standing diagonally behind it. The name is the shape those blockers make. It is the same family as the dovetail and the epaulette: the king is undone by its own company.
How to spot it
The king in the open with pieces on the two squares behind it, and a queen able to reach the square directly in front with something defending her. Work out which piece can do the defending before you calculate the check, because without support it is simply a queen given away.
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. White to play Play it out →Answer
32.Qf4+ Bf5 33.Qxf5#
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2. White to play Play it out →Answer
39.g8=Q+ Kd7 40.Qd8#
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3. White to play Play it out →Answer
34.Rxf7+ Kxf7 35.Qf6#
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4. White to play Play it out →Answer
70.Qe3+ Kg4 71.Qg3#
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5. Black to play Play it out →Answer
29...Rxd8+ 30.Bxd8 Qd4+ 31.Ke2 Qe3#
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6. White to play Play it out →Answer
28.Qh8+ Ke7 29.Rxe6+ Kxe6 30.Qe5#
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7. White to play Play it out →Answer
21.Rxb7+ Kxb7 22.Qb6#
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8. White to play Play it out →Answer
24.Qf6+ Kd7 25.Bb5+ c6 26.Qe7#
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9. Black to play Play it out →Answer
24...Rxc2 25.Kxc2 Qa2+ 26.Kd3 Qxb3+ 27.Bc3 Qxc3#
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10. White to play Play it out →Answer
13.Bh5+ Kd7 14.Bg4+ Ke7 15.Qf7#
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11. White to play Play it out →Answer
35.Rxh7+ Kxh7 36.Bf5+ Kh8 37.Qh4+ Kg7 38.Qh7#
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12. White to play Play it out →Answer
32.Rf7+ Kxf7 33.Qxh7+ Ke6 34.Qg6+ Ke7 35.Qf6+ Kd7 36.Qd6#
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.