Introduction
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For a smothered mate of this sort to occur in a game, it is usually necessary to sacrifice material to compel pieces to smother the king – a player is unlikely to voluntarily surround his king with pieces in a position where a smothered mate is possible. One method is particularly common – an example is to be found in the game between Jan Timman (White) and Nigel Short (Black) at the 1990 Tilburg tournament. From the diagrammed position, play continued 27.Nf7+ Kg8 28.Nh6+ Kh8 29.Qg8+ Rxg8 30.Nf7#. The procedure is: check with the knight, then move the knight away to deliver a double check from the queen and knight, then sacrifice the queen to force the rook next to the king, then mate with the knight. (Note that White would force mate even if his rook, and his pawn on e7, were removed from the board, and Black had a knight on f6. In that case, 27.Nf7+ Kg8 28.Nh6+ Kh8 (28...Kf8 29.Qf7#) 29.Qg8+! Nxg8 (or 29...Rxg8) 30.Nf7 still mates.) This technique is so common as to have its own name: Philidor's Mate or Philidor's Legacy (after François-André Danican Philidor). This is something of a misnomer, however, as it is first described in Luis Ramirez Lucena's 1497 text on chess, Repetición de Amores e Arte de Axedrez, which predates Philidor by several hundred years.
Read more about this topic: Smothered Mate
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