Today's Daily Puzzle 10/8/20: Opera House Mate

There's a famous game that was played way back in 1858 usually dubbed the "Opera Game". It was a game played by one of the greatest players who ever lived, American chess legend Paul Morphy, during an opera in France against two nobles, a Count and a Duke. I can't blame them for playing chess during an opera, if I was stuck in an opera today I'd probably pull my phone out and send out a challenge for a 15/5 game on chess.com 

The game is well known for being quite instructive and shows the importance of fast and active development. But what does this have to do with today's and yesterday's puzzles? In both puzzles, the theme was a very common and important-to-know rook+bishop checkmate. This checkmate occurred in the Opera Game and so I'm dubbing it the Opera House Mate. See below, Morphy (white) to move:

A very beautiful mate indeed! I'll post the full game down below if you are interested in going over it. Now, let's see how the last two daily puzzles also employ sacrifice and deflection to achieve the Opera House Mate:

Today's Puzzle:

Today's daily puzzle doesn't technically deliver the Opera House Mate, but it does set up the threat.

Yesterday's Daily Puzzle:

Yesterday's daily puzzle does a much better job displaying the full-frontal Opera House Mate. In fact, the tactical ideas of this puzzle are eerily similar to the Morphy game: deflect, sacrifice, mate.

I hope seeing these puzzles and the Morphy example emphasizes how surprisingly common these rook+bishop Opera House Mates actually are. Be on the lookout for these threats and tactical ideas in your game! How did you do on today's and yesterday's puzzles? 

Nick

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The full Opera House Game: