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Smothered mate

I feel so pleased with my self because I finally managed a smothered mate in online chess. I don't pretend that I was wholly responsible for this relatively rare gem as the other player must be unaware of this threat and so not defend against it. However I did spot it about 5 moves ahead.
en.lichess.org/CvClphyRT2bj
It really does feel good. I've gotten one in before myself, and even though it was against a berserking player in the marathon who was playing a pretty terrible game in general, I still let out a manly roar when I got to play the mate.

Yours is especially pretty though - the position after Rb8 looks like it's right out of a book!
Ah, great game, well played! I have never done it in normal chess.
Congratz:) I have done it several times in fast chess. Definetly most beautiful mate in chess;)
Someone attempted and to perform this smothered mate on me once however I was able to position my knight into a position to take the queen and my opponent was so focused on getting the knight into position that he/she failed to notice that my knight was attacking his/her queen and so I successfully avoided the checkmate sequence by capturing my opponents queen which would have also been the beginning of my own checkmate sequence if my opponent hadn't left the game after loosing his/her queen.
Yeah, that's the difference between my game and yours, that is, you recognised the potential threat and was able to defend and my opponent didn't see it coming. I guess with any clever mating combination it needs, to some degree, the opponents cooperation. :)
Cooperation is always nice:) But take into account that "mating combination" and "mating attack" is not one and the same. With well learned mating combinations you can figure out how to finish your opponents off in good attack and with well learned mating attacks you can make a position where you dont need an opponents cooperation not nearly as much.
My point was that , generally speaking, I can only do what my opponent allows me to do, whether it be failure to recognise a mating threat or inferior game play that puts me in a position where I can mate irrespective of the opponents defensive attempts. I probably stating the obvious here. Often I will try that killer combination even if I know there may be a defense if my opponent takes the time to look for it or even recognizes there is a threat. To the inexperienced player, a smothered mate may not register in the brain because it involves a queen sac and a final position that is rarely encountered. In the above game, based on an assessment of my opponents play so far, I bank on the threat not being recognised. In any case his immediate attacking chances were low so I had plenty of time to form an alternative mating net even if the threat of smothered mate evaporated. In other words it wasn't a risky gambit and there was nothing to lose by attempting a smothered mate. I think I would be hard pressed to come up with a smothered mate in a sub 5 minute game.

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