♞Reflex Chess

The checkmate patterns that actually happen

There are perhaps a dozen mating shapes you will meet for the rest of your chess life. Knowing them is not memorisation. It is the difference between calculating and recognising.

A checkmate pattern is a piece of geometry, not a sequence. Back rank is a king behind its own pawns with a major piece arriving on the eighth. Smothered is a king with its own pieces on every flight square and a knight that does not care. Once the shape is in your head, you stop finding these mates by calculation and start finding them by noticing that the position already looks like one.

That is also why mate in two and mate in three sit in this section rather than in a puzzle-book chapter of their own. They are not a separate skill. They are these same shapes, one or two forcing moves further away.

Every motif in Checkmate Patterns

Work through the section in order Finish the game. Shapes you will see for the rest of your life. Five graded levels per motif, four positions a lesson. Open the course

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