Crushing Queen and Burly Bishop Break Into the Castle Part 1

Queen and Bishop Helper Mates Like You've Never Seen Them Before, Part 1...by, Ms Jessica Martin (aka BoundingOwl)

I'm going to say this once:  this stuff is important.  It WILL come up in your games.  It came up in one of mine recently, and boy was I excited!  Time to break into the castle.

 

Queens are dangerous pieces, as you well know.  Queens can make checkmate with ANY other piece helping out---protecting them.  This lesson will cover the first part of what you need to know to crush your opponents with a queen and a bishop.

 

When the queen and bishop are lined up together it's called a battery.  It's like a battering ram.

We are going to work backwards now in our puzzles...so we will start with a super easy mate in one.

Watch how the queen guards all the squares around the king. And she also puts him in check.  Meanwhile the bishop guards his queen. 

 

 

 

Too easy.  I know.  You are getting so smart over there.  So, a mate in two for you to do:

 

 

 

 

This next one is a mate in three if you use the same pattern. But it could be a mate in two if you remember Boden's Mate from last week!!

 

 

So, sometimes you don't lead with the queen.  In our last example, it is the BISHOP who must capture first.  If you use the queen, the king will get to run away.  Instead, the bishop forces the king into the corner, where a nice little pattern is going to crush your opponent.

 

 

 

Simple!  Next week we will discuss the queen and bishop sneaky pin mate (I am still thinking up a clever name for it).  It will make your opponent jump up and exclaim, "WHAT?!  Oh, wow, that's a pin!" {Which you remember quite well from my Pin it to Win it lesson.}

I love checkmates, don't you?  Okay, but of course it's not just about the checkmates.  You know that.  It's also about learning cool tricks and figuring out how you can be sneakysmart in regular life too.  Be a problem solver!