Smith-Morra Gambit | Philidor's Smothered Mate 🤩 OMG!!
#sicilian #smithmorragambit #philidorsmate #smotheredmate #brilliant
Another day, another Sicilian Defense, another fiery game of the Smith-Morra Gambit Accepted (1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 dxc3)! In this game, I found a smothered checkmate pattern that I've only ever seen theoretically - the Philidor's mate, or the Philidor's Legacy!
In this game, we had an interesting line with Black making a relative inaccuracy on move 5 with (5... Nf6). Simply, the knight is liable to being attacked immediately by the e-pawn, and after it leaps to the only safe square on the board, d7, it gets struck again by the e-pawn (6. e5 Nfd7 7. e6)!
Black plays the only sensible move by capturing the e-pawn (7. fxe6 8. Bxe6). Curiously, Stockfish gives an evaluation of [0.00] but Black has an f-pawn shaped hole in their defences and the weakness along the light squares is something that can be exploited!
The opening and early middlegame then progresses where both my opponent and I trade some tactical attacks, and neither of us play especially accurately. On move 14, Black castles (14... O-O) and hangs their e-pawn allowing me to capture and taking control of the light squares with me queen with check (15. Qxe6+). Sensing the advantage, I line up a battery (16. Re1) and Black responds by bolstering their own e-file (16... Re8). However, this was a critical blunder, though the reason wasn't necessarily easy to see.
I had a powerful attack now with (17. Ne5), threatening Nf7+ which would come with a royal fork. In the game, I didn't initially see the full power of this move, but my opponent now sat on the position for a full five minutes. While I was waiting, it came to me! Black was basically forced to trade their rook for my knight with (17... Rf8 18. Nf7+ Rxf7 19. Qxf7)!
If they, for instance, opted to move their queen so that Nf7+ wouldn't come with a royal fork, then I had Philidor's mate! This starts with (18. Nf7+ Kg8) - Black's king is forced to the g8 square. However, I then had (19. Nh6+) double check (knight and queen), and the king is forced back to the corner (19... Kh8). And now, a glorious and brilliant queen sacrifice with (20. Qg8+) and Black is forced to capture the queen as the only legal move with their rook (20... Rxg8). And then the pièce de résistance (21. Nf7#) smothered checkmate!
I was super-excited, but with full credit to my opponent, they must have calculated it out over those five minutes as they finally played the correct move - (17... Rf8) - and they are forced to trade their rook for my knight.
No matter - I was now in a completely dominant and winning position. Over the next couple of moves, I force trade the queens, and then the knights. My rook then flies onto Black's back rank (23. Re8) which gives a double back rank pin - Black's bishop to the king, and black's knight to the rook. A couple more moves - I force trade the dark square bishops and on move 25, Black resigns having suffered emotional damage. GG!
The big takeaway is to keep an eye out for the pattern that leads to Philidor's mate! It's not exactly intuitive or obvious to see so you need to search for it.
