Checkmate Patterns
In chess, the king is never captured—the player loses as soon as their king is checkmated. In formal games, most players resign an inevitably lost game before being checkmated. It is usually considered bad etiquette to continue playing in a completely hopeless position.
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In chess, several checkmate patterns occur frequently enough to have acquired specific names in chess commentary.
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Lolli's mate
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Lolli's mate is a common method of checkmating. The checkmate involves infiltrating Black's fianchetto position using both a pawn and queen. The queen often gets to the h6-square by means of sacrifices on the h-file. It is named after Giambattista Lolli.
Max Lange's mate
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Max Lange's mate is a less common method of checkmating. The checkmate is named after Max Lange. It works by using the bishop and queen to checkmate the king.
Morphy's mate
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Morphy's mate is a common method of checkmating. It was named after Paul Morphy. It works by using the bishop to attack the black king and a rook and Black's own pawn to confine it. In many respects, it is very similar to the Corner mate.