Morphy Mate Chess Puzzles

About morphy mate puzzles

Morphy's Mate is named after the legendary American genius Paul Morphy and involves a bishop and rook delivering checkmate against a castled king. The rook delivers check on the h-file while the bishop on an open diagonal controls the king's only flight square. This pattern arises from successful kingside attacks and is most effective against a fianchettoed or open king position. Morphy himself used this pattern in many of his brilliant attacking games. Practising Morphy's Mate puzzles trains you to set up the bishop-rook battery that makes this mate possible and to calculate the sacrificial sequences needed to open the h-file and expose the king to this devastating combination.

How to train morphy mate

The morphy mate is a named pattern because it recurs. Learn the geometry — which squares the king is denied and which piece delivers the blow — and you will spot it in your own games without calculating.

Questions

How many morphy mate puzzles are there?

Enough that you will not repeat them — this set is drawn from a library of over 1,000,000 puzzles taken from real games, graded from easy to hard.

What level is this suitable for?

Children from about age 5 upward, once they know how the pieces move, through to rated tournament players. Start on the easy set and move up when you are solving most of them at a glance.