Checkmate: the patterns
Almost every game is decided by a mating pattern you can learn to recognise. Here are the most important ones: try to deliver the mate yourself, learn how it works, and how to defend against it.
Scholar’s mateScholar’s mate is chess’s most famous trapSmothered mateThe smothered mate is the knight’s signature trick and chess’s most elegant mateBack-rank mateThe back-rank mate strikes a king hiding safely behind its own pawns, right until a rook or queen slides in on the open rank behind it. It may be the most common mate in all of chess.The ladder mateThe ladder mate is the first mate every beginner should learnQueen mateKing and queen versus king is the endgame you will need most often. With a little technique you deliver mate every time, and it decides countless games when you are ahead in material.Rook mateMating with king and rook versus king takes a little more work than with the queen