Scholar's Mate

The Scholar's Mate is a very quick checkmate that White can use to win in just 4 moves!

The Scholar's Mate

White starts out with e4.

Black responds with e5.

White plays Bc4.

Black usually plays a move like Nc6 or Bc5.

White plays Qh5.

If Black's not careful and attacks the queen with Nf6, the game's about to end!

Can you see why?

Qf7 is checkmate!

This four-move checkmate can end games for beginners really quickly.

So how do you stop it? Let's take a look:

The move g6 can block the queen from reaching f7.

It also attacks the white queen, forcing her to move back.

White sometimes tries to get to f7 by moving the queen to f3.

Here, you can block the queen again with Nf6.

The black queen protects the knight, so the white queen can't capture it!

Here, White can try to get to f7 by creating a battery using the queen and the bishop.

Even if Black lets White take the pawn, it's not checkmate.

But the black queen can defend the pawn by moving to e7.

White's plans are foiled!

There's one important thing to remember before you play g6:

Make sure your e5 pawn is defended!

Here, if you play g6, you lose your rook to a fork!

Let's say your e5 pawn isn't defended and White is trying a Scholar's Mate.

You can defend both by playing Qe7.