Lesson #9: Basic Mate Procedures

On Dec 8 we covered the "ladder mate" using two rooks to squeeze the opponent's king against the wall. If the king tried to stop our plans by approaching the two rooks, we exploited the speed difference between the two pieces and just shifted our ladder activity to the other side of the board.

On Dec 15 we covered the procedure to mate with queen and king, the steps were roughly:

1. corner them! (use the "shape" of the queen's attacked squares to push the opponent's king towards a corner)
2. take the wall! (on his way to the corner, the opponent's king will eventually touch the edge of the board, when you should make a queen move that keeps him there)
3. bring your king! (to be the eventual protector of the queen when she delivers mate)
4. mate!

I recommend the supplemental lesson at Chesskid. The homework is below: