In its commonly castled position one of the most fundamental types of mate is back-rank mate. Here is what a back-rank mate looks like:
In this situation White has just played 1.Rb8# (checkmate). Because the “back rank” isn’t protected and the castled king has pawns blocking its movement to f7, g7, and h7, the poor king is mated. For this reason, players often play a pawn move in front of their king to give it space to move. This is called “luft”. But back-rank mate can still occur if that “luft” is attacked by an enemy piece. For example…
Despite the fact that Black has played …h6, he is still in checkmate. This because the enemy bishop on c2 attacks the key square on h7.
Back-rank mate is a very common combinational theme. Through sacrifice and a forcing sequence of moves, one side can execute a back-rank mate, or sometimes create it as a strong threat which costs the opponent material. Here are some examples.
Barrionuevo(2363) - Scarella(2365)
Villa Ballester de Invierno op 8th, 2008
White to move, Beginner puzzle, KEBU Chess Tactics Software 2009
Black’s back rank is defended only by the rook on d8. In addition to that the g7 square is covered by White’s bishop on e5. For this reason White was able to play 32.Qxd5! winning a full piece since if Black were to recapture 32…Rxd5 then 33.Rc8+ Rd8 34.Rxd8+ Re8 35.Rxe8#.
Here’s a more somewhat trickier example:
Shabalov(2585) – Arenas(2323)
Pan American Continental, 2008
White to move, Beginner puzzle from KEBU Chess Tactics Software 2009
Here White played 26.Rxd7! And Black resigned. If the bishop were to be taken then Black would continue 26…Rxd7 27.Qb8+ Bf8 28.Bh6! covering the g7 square, and forcing a version of back-rank mate.
These examples were taken from games played very recently (last year) directly from KEBU Chess Tactics Software. You can download a free version here for more puzzles like these.
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