You can read this if you know your chess coordinates … this article is intended for beginners who are starting to play chess.
To start, if you know this kind of mate, do not fear – I will show you how to defend against the tricky mate.
This mate focuses on the “f” pawn. In other words, the “f” pawn is the weakest square in your beginning castle because there is no other piece defending it except your king (see for yourself!).
The Scholar’s Mate game usually starts like this:
- e4 e5
- Qh5
As you can see, the queen is attacking the “f” pawn on black’s side. There are many options for black, but if he plays randomly, he will quickly get mated and the game is over:
2. … Nc6
3. Bc4 Nf6???
4. Qxf7#
Note that the black king cannot take the queen since the queen is protected by the bishop. Therefore, it is a checkmate in this position. This checkmate is called the “Scholar’s Mate”, or also “The Four Move Checkmate”.
To defend it, we have a couple options, but we have to be careful not to blunder some of them.
For example, why is Nf6 a blunder in our example game? Well, it is attacking the queen, but the queen has a better option – to checkmate the opponent. Similarly, if black wants to attack white’s queen earlier in the game and plays g6 after 2. Qh5, then white can simply fork the king and the rook on h8 by playing Qxe5+.
So how in the world do you prevent that from happening? I’ll show you my way:I would personally ignore the bishop and the queen until it comes to the third move.
I would do 3. … Nh6 or 3. … Qe7. Let’s say I did the first move listed. If the queen takes, the knight takes the queen and ultimately white loses his queen. Even if the bishop takes f6, then the knight takes the bishop. After that white would probably retreat his queen to save it. If I did the latter, Qe7, then if the queen takes, white would inevitably lose by about bishop’s worth (advantage: +2) along the way when white completes the exchange.
If black does 2. … d6 and 3. … Be6 to defend the f-pawn, white can simply capture the bishop and move closer to black’s king. The “f” pawn cannot recapture because it is pinned by the white queen.
So try this on a beginner – and as black, you can also do the same thing – just on a different “f” square – f2.
Good luck with your game!
