Here is a Blitz game I played today. The opening is the Caro Kann. As you would know I am not a huge fan of the Caro Kann and I usually play the opening as White so with the game transposing to the Caro Kann and myself with the Black pieces I felt like I was already on the backfoot. But I managed to hold the position and my opponent went for a risky attack that allowed me to win the game.
I found this puzzle on Susan Polgar’s Blog and thought it would be a fun one to post as it uses the ideas from Anastasia’s mate that I have recently looked at in this blog. Susan Polgar has a great blog so make sure you check it out!
By now most of you will know that I love the Ruy Lopez. I am not sure why it speaks to me the way it does but it is definitely one of my favourite openings.
The following trap occurs in both the Steinitz and Open variation of the Ruy Lopez with both variations being known as the Tarrasch Trap named after Siegbert Tarrasch.
Anastasia’s mate is a common mating technique that you may have seen or used before. It involves using a Knight and a Rook to trap the opponents King.
The following example is the most common representation of Anastasia’s mate.
The Knight on e7 blocks the black King from the g6 and g8 squares with blacks own pawns preventing the King from escaping also. The Rook covers the h file and therefore Black is Checkmated.
Anastasia’s mate may occur on different areas of the board but will follow the same key ideas explained in the example above with the Knight blocking the Kings available squares and the Rook taking control of the open file.
Anastasia’s mate will commonly occur by sacrificing a Rook or Queen to draw the King out and create the open file needed to reach checkmate. The following game is the puzzle on chessgames.com today and shows how this can occur. This is a classic example of Anastasia’s mate.
This next game shows an example of using the Queen in order to open the file and allow the Rook to Checkmate the King. The game was played at the World Youth Chess Championships in 2003.
While researching about Anastasia’s mate I stumbled across the following site that had some really interesting examples, explanations and puzzles for Anastasia’s Mate. Go check it out to learn more! chesstactics.org
