This mating pattern is called the Balestra Mate possibly because the attacking pieces criss-cross diagonals in a way that resembles the shape of a crossbow, known as "balestra" in Italian.
The pattern involves a Bishop and a Queen attacking an exposed King on intersecting diagonals. The Queen controls the escape squares of the opponent's King both diagonally and vertically, while the Bishop delivers checkmate on an unguarded diagonal. In the simplified example shown in the diagram above, White uses the pattern and wins with 1.Be6#.
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When we started adding a playful touch to chess learning, we looked through thousands of videos and hundreds of books to find the best resources out there. Here's our curated selection of the best content we encountered on the Balestra Mate. We also included some smaller creators who are growing fast and we believe deserve your attention. Check out these resources if you want to master this checkmate pattern.
This is another excellent YouTube short by Chess Knowledge with H1. This time it’s about the Balestra Mate. Start here if you are a beginner and have little time right now.
Take a look at this in-depth explanation of the Balestra Checkmate by the passionate ChessMood YouTube channel. Lots of examples of growing complexity.
In this short video, Coach Daniel Greiner (a.k.a. KingBishop) presents a not-so-obvious Chess.com puzzle that ends up, you guessed it, in a nice Balestra Mate-type configuration. Enjoy it.
This book by legendary László Polgár is massive. It has more than 5,000 exercises. Working through it you can develop the intuitive expertise that great players possess. For serious players of all levels.
This inexpensive book by Torsten B. Mattsson is a little gem. Aimed at beginners, it presents 60 different patterns in a unique and smart way: bare pattern > mate in one > mate in two.
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