The Opera Mate is a commonly seen checkmate pattern implemented on an enemy King before castling on the back rank with a Rook and a Bishop that protects the Rook.
This is a particularly satisfying checkmate to deliver because one of your opponents pieces is used to block its own King from escaping. Any piece can be used except a Knight.
The Opera Mate is actually a type of Anderssen’s mate and is also similar another pattern called Mayet’s mate. This checkmate pattern was named after Paul Morphy in one of the most famous Chess games in the history of Chess, the 1858 game at the Paris opera against Duke Karl of Brunswick and Count Isouard, also known as the famous event in Paris called the Opera Game. [1]
How To
You can implement this checkmate early in games before your opponent castles and the King is still on the back rank. This is the most common part of the game where you’ll see this mate occur.
Examples
Example #1
This first example is from the game where the mate pattern was first given a name, the famous Opera game with Paul Morphy in 1858.
Example #2
Practice Puzzles
Puzzle #1
Can you see how you can deliver an Opera mate?
Puzzle #2
For more examples, you can see collection of games where the Opera mate was delivered.
I hope this guide on the how to deliver the Opera Mate helped you. If you liked this post, you may want to learn all of the other Checkmate patterns such as the Back-Rank Mate and Greco’s Mate.