Patterns: Bishop+Rook Mates
Many naturally talented chess players effortlessly envision mating patterns, applying them or threatening their application with amazing ease. Other, less talented players such as myself, must keep hammering them into their brains, hoping that one day they'll stick and become second nature.
I'm neither a chess expert nor an educator, but it seems rather inarguable that one way to accomplish this goal is to examine the mating patterns and games, or positions, in which the patterns are employed.
note: in the games below, sometimes the mate occurred, somtimes it was implied.
I recently came across an article, author unknown, in an old chess magazine that talked about Bishop-Rook mating patterns, giving the above two as the most common configurations. Of course here are other B-R patterns which we'll briefly examine here, but first let's look at the examples given in the article.
The most famous of them all occured in Morphy's Opera Game:
Similar is this mating attack:
As well as this one:
Very similar is:
The article gives Santasiere's opponent in this next game as Weaver Adams. Most databases and later articles give Santasiere's opponent as Edward Bradford Adams. The B-R mate is unusually inverted.
Back to the 19th century, even pre-Morphy.
Chessgames.com presents this game with a different ending. The ending given here has been given in many other sources. This is another inverted B-R mate.
Here the article ended. But there are many more examples of the Bishop-Rook mate in the annals of chess.
Other Bishop and Rook Mating Patterns
Where the Bishops mates:
A game between two giants
Unusual Rook mates with the Bishop helping:
Anderssen gets outplayed tactically for a beautiful Bishop-Rook mate:
