Corner Mate
Corner Mate
This mating pattern is called Corner Mate because when the opponent's King gets checkmated, it is confined to one corner of the board.
The pattern involves a Rook and a Knight attacking a cornered King. The Knight delivers mate while the Rook dominates the open file adjacent to the opponent's King. In some variations of this pattern, the Rook can be substituted by a Queen and the Knight by a Bishop. In the simplified example shown in the diagram, White uses the pattern and wins with 1.Nf7#.
Designed with Love in Italy
Designed with Love in Italy
These chess icons are our indie studio's tribute to chess lovers around the world. A way of making chess more visual and fun. You can use the icons for free in publicly accessible content, simply by crediting us (see our Licensing Policy). Each icon is paired with examples and numbered insights to help you pick up ideas quickly and talk about chess with confidence. You can get the cards here.



Master the Corner Mate
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 Corner 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.
-
What is the Corner Mate in Chess?
Have a look at this nice 36-sec introduction to the Corner mate by excellent Chess Knowledge with H1 chess channel. Ideal for beginners.
-
The "corner mate" pattern - Checkmate patterns in chess
This is another very well-structured video by Jozarov’s chess channel. This episode of the Checkmate Patterns series is all about the Corner Mate. Full of great examples. Don’t skip it.
-
Top 32 Checkmates You Must Know
Watch this clear and exhaustive video by Chess Talk and look at the Corner Mate in the context of the other most important mating patterns.
-
The Checkmate Patterns Manual*
This book is an adaptation of the exceptional work that Raf Mesotten aka CraftyRaf originally did for his much beloved Chessable course. Complete and extremely well organized.
-
This book by Georges Renaud is an old classic (1947) but has been recently re-translated because it remains one of the best introductions to checkmates. It's worth checking out.