More Bishop and Rook Mates

White to play and force mate (6).


White to play and win (6).

After my recent discussion of the Bishop and Rook Mating Pattern, Tom Chivers (who writes the excellent Streatham & Brixton CC blog) commented: "I've been getting stumped by so many strange and wonderful puzzles and studies recently, it's great to go back to some child's play!" So, for Tom, we are going to have to take it up a notch....

The last puzzles were three-movers (more or less). The wins in the two diagrams above are about six moves deep. Solutions to these puzzles plus a dozen more games with the same theme can be found in Mating Patterns: More Bishop and Rook Mates, which I've recently posted at the Kenilworth Chess Club website.

The Bishop and Rook theme is a favorite of mine, and in compiling these games I remembered one of my own favorites with the theme. I annotated it online several years back as part of my Urusov Gambit website: Goeller - Hall, Hillside 1980.

I hope I have time to compile more of these game and puzzle sets. I think they are very useful for teaching these important patterns, since they show how they arise in the course of play. Those interested in finding more game sets along these lines should explore the wonderful Game Collections at Chessgames.com, including the ones on Boden's Mate (a.k.a. The Bishops Cross Mate) and Mating Patterns. And then there is always Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, which offers loads of examples of the back rank mating theme....