
If you make a mistake, don't panic: there is no way to lose the game, and you must complete the task in 50 moves (as per the 50-move rule). Rather, move the bishop intended to deliver the checkmate to clear the enemy's escape path, then bring your king to its final destination! When done correctly, the enemy has nothing better to do than to move back and forth between two squares.
TWO BISHOPS CHECKMATE HOW TO
For more information, visit the guide on how to do the Blackburne’s Mate. In this case, the remaining pawn would be in front of the Rook. This checkmate occurs when the opponent is castled and only one pawn is left of the three in front of the King and Rook. Now is the time for the last trick: no longer do you have to swing the bishop around to get the checkmate. Blackburne’s Mate is a mating pattern given with two bishops and a knight. Rinse and repeat the process until your king is just three squares away from the board's edge. Now the opponent must move one square closer to the corner. Then, you spend two moves to move your bishop to the other side of your second bishop, closing in the cage. (This is not the case when youre trying to checkmate with a bishop and a knight!) By moving a bishop around with your king, you'll be able to slowly achieve this goal.įirst, you take a step back with your bishop and take the vacant square with your king. Now is the time to put your adversary's king into the corner square.īoth bishops will work, and you'll have both bishops at your disposal.


This should be sufficient until you reach the back end. Place your bishops next to each other to form the barrier of doom, then march your monarch next to them to reclaim the opponent. Like with rooks, two bishops can effectively remove a king in one direction, but they cannot force it down the board entirely. On the diagram above pair of bishops show its true power by checkmating the Black’s King without the own King’s support: 1.Bb2. Doubling the bishops is like doubling rooks a very effective tool. To reverse engineer the result, you can go backwards from here, but here's a step-by-step guide. Two bishop checkmate It was once said that a pair of bishops on an open position is twice as strong as these bishops far away from each other. The enemy king has to be thrust into a corner, with one bishop checking them, and the second one laser-beaming away their escape path in one direction.

It may also arise in practical situations, and it would be extremely embarrassing to lose half a point because of this!įirst, you need to know what the ending position is. As an amateur player, this is one of the toughest mating patterns to understand, but it's a useful skill to have, and it reminds you of the power of the bishop pair at any point in the game.
