Talk:Smothered mate

Another example

Samuel Reshevsky fell for a mate in 9 as White while playing in Israel, presumably as part of a simultaneous exhibition. Irving Chernev cites it in his book, Wonders and Curiosities of Chess, among other opening blunders by GMs. Since I don't have the reference, I won't add it to the article. Does anyone have it on a database? Shalom ^Hello 19:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

It's in the Chessbase Mega Database: Reshevsky-Z. Margolits, Haifa simul, 1958. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 c5 5.Nge2 d5 6.Bd2 Qa5 7.a3 Nc6 8.axb4 Nxb4 9.Rxa5 Nd3# I don't think we want to put every smothered mate ever into the article though, do we? --Camembert 13:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I have the book Wonders and Curiosities of Chess if it is needed. Bubba73 (talk), 02:05, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Only by a knight?

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Aparantly a smothered mate is considered only by a knight (the article says it and The Oxford Companion to Chess says so too). This excludes positions such as this one, right? Bubba73 (talk), 02:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Right. The point about a smothered mate is that the mated player's king cannot move because all squares in its field are blocked by friendly units. That's not the case with this bishop mate: the king cannot move to g7 because the white bishop controls that square, not because it is blocked by a black unit. And clearly, if a king is surrounded by its own pieces, then only a piece which is able to leap over them can give mate; in the orthodox game, that can only be a knight. --Camembert (talk) 01:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Pillsbury once won a game a piece down where he swindled his opponent with a combination that ended with a mate like that in the diagram. I agree that it is not a smothered mate, and that a knight is the only standard chess piece that can administer a smothered mate. Krakatoa (talk) 06:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

"Morphy - McConnell"

The article included a game Morphy - McConnell, date unknown, which went 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4. Bc4 Bg7 5. d3 h6 6. O-O Nf6 7. c3 b5 8. Bxb5 c6 9. Bc4 d5 10. exd5 cxd5 11. Qe2+ Be6 12. Bb3 O-O 13. d4 Ne4 14. Bc2 f5 15. Nbd2 Nc6 16. c4 Bxd4+ 17. Nxd4 Nxd4 18. Qd3 Qb6 19. Kh1 Nxc2 20. Qxc2 Nf2+ 21.Kg1 Nh3+ 22. Kh1 Qg1+ 23. Rxg1 Nf2# 0-1 This is the classic form of the mate (Philidor's Legacy) which we describe right at the start of the article, but I guess the person who added it thought it worthwhile including this second example because it is remarkable that a player zs strong as Morphy fell for it. However, this game appears in the Chessbase Mega Database 2004 not as Morphy - McConnell, but as Mac Connel - Morphy (New Orleans, 1849). In other words, Morphy didn't fall for the mate at all; he executed it. I do not think, therefore, that it is noteworthy or interesting enough to include it in the article.

Of course, it may be that the Chessbase database is wrong (it wouldn't be the only error in there), but I'd really like to know of a reliable source if the version with Morphy losing were to be added back to the article. --Camembert (talk) 01:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Macon Shibut's book Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Chess Theory (2nd edition 2004) claims on page 3 to include "every available Morphy game, collected together in an English language volume for the first time." The index, on page 355, lists four games Morphy played against "McConnell". Morphy won all of them, including the last (1866) game at knight odds. No "Mac Connel" is listed. None of the four McConnell games even resembles the game given above. Only one of them was a King's Gambit, and that game diverged with 4.h4 g4 5.Ne5 (the Kieseritzky Gambit) h5? (a now-obsolete line that was known as "The Long Whip") 6.Bc4 Rh7. The index to Philip W. Sergeant's Morphy's Games of Chess (1957) also lists no such game. Absent an authoritative source for this game, I think you were right to delete it. Krakatoa (talk) 06:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Does the notation acknowledge a double check?

Specifically, should the move Nh6+ (Knight move which uncovers attack by Queen and itself gives check) be notated as: Nh6++ FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 20:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

It is double check, but chess literature usually does not make the distinction. It is optional - it wouldn't hurt to put it in, since this is for a general audience. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:50, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I'm liking this, optional, but wouldn't hurt putting it in since we're for a general audience. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 20:22, 11 February 2013 (UTC)