Mate Monster: Lawnmower mate

The lawnmower mate is a mating method that every mate monster should master. In this lesson we use a queen and a rook for our lawnmower mate. As you will see in the next lesson, you can also use two rooks.

Study the examples to understand how the lawnmower mate works.

Example 1 shows how the king is mated in het end.
Example 2 explains how to get there step-by-step.

Make sure to replay this example a couple of times, until you feel confident that you can do it yourself.
The trick is to switch between queen and rook in every move. Fence off the king with one of the pieces. And force the king towards the edge by checking the king with the other piece.

It is as if the rook and queen are mowing the lawn: no blade of grass is left uncut. The lawn-mower mate is also known as ‘ladder mate’.

What do you have to do?

Deliver a lawnmower mate. Alternate between queen and rook and roll back the black king. Gradually cut off all escape paths.
Keep your pieces safe and well protected.
It may take 3 or 4 moves before you can checkmate the king, but that won’t be a problem once you have grasped this.