In The Opening
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
| 8 | 8 | ||||||||
| 7 | 7 | ||||||||
| 6 | 6 | ||||||||
| 5 | 5 | ||||||||
| 4 | 4 | ||||||||
| 3 | 3 | ||||||||
| 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h |
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
| 8 | 8 | ||||||||
| 7 | 7 | ||||||||
| 6 | 6 | ||||||||
| 5 | 5 | ||||||||
| 4 | 4 | ||||||||
| 3 | 3 | ||||||||
| 2 | 2 | ||||||||
| 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h |
Occasionally, a smothered mate may be possible in the opening of a game. One of the most famous, and most frequently occurring, is in the Budapest Gambit. It arises after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.Bf4 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bb4+ 6.Nbd2 Qe7 7.a3 Ngxe5 8.axb4?? Nd3# (final position at left). Note that the knight cannot be taken because the pawn on e2 is pinned to the white king by the black queen on e7. Another notorious example is the so-called "Blackburne Shilling Gambit" (named after the 19th century English player Joseph Henry Blackburne, supposedly because he used it to win shillings from amateurs). It goes: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nd4?! 4.Nxe5!? Qg5! 5.Nxf7?? Qxg2 6.Rf1 Qxe4+ 7.Be2 Nf3# (final position at right). There is also a well-known trap in the Caro-Kann Defence: 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Qe2!? Ngf6?? 6.Nd6#. This trap has claimed many victims, perhaps the earliest recorded example being Alekhine-Four Amateurs, simultaneous exhibition, Palma de Mallorca 1935.
Read more about this topic: Smothered Mate
Famous quotes containing the word opening:
“The rangey bough anticipated fruit
With snowballs cupped in every opening bud.
The road alone maintained itself in mud....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)