Use Fools Mate to Fool Your Mates

The diagram shows you the tragic demise of White after two disastrous moves. Yes the game is over already and this sequence of moves has been dubbed Fool's Mate because only a fool would play the moves White has played. The move order is 1.f3 e5 2.g4 Qh4#. There is no good reason for White to play these moves.

A weak excuse can be made for 1.f3 in that it potentially supports it's neighboring pawn when it is theoretically played to e4 at a later stage. It doesn't aid development of the back row pieces. Indeed it actually takes away a great square, f3, from the Kingside Knight. And the center can be just as easily supported by numerous other means.

2.g4 in this position is a move that no sane person would play. It achieves only a rapid defeat. It seals the King's fate by allowing the Black Queen to swoop for a completely unearned checkmate on h4. Now you know, don't let it happen to you.

Scholar's Mate also known as the four move checkmate takes place by White mating the Black king in four moves. It is quite primitive and easily defended. However if the player with the Black pieces doesn't know what he's doing then he is vulnerable to this basic plan.

Black's three moves in this sequence are not restricted to any rigid order. As far as White is concerned, as long as Black does not play certain sound defensive moves, then White's four moves will work.

So Black does not have to play quite as dumb as White did for the two move checkmate. He just has to be not paying attention. The move order can be 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Bc5 3.Qh5 Nf6 4.Qf7#.

If you want to eliminate any possibility of succumbing to Fools Mate, play 1.e4. This is the King's Pawn Game and the first advantage of it is you have sidestepped the two move defeat. Multiple attacking options open up for you, not some ignominious defeat that you don't want anyone to know befell you. Let's look at some KPG alternatives.

If you're a gambler, look no further than the King's Gambit. Kiss your f-pawn goodbye, and with the open f-file and some quick development, you could be all over the opposing King as the opening gives way to the middlegame. Make sure you know something about the Classical Defense and the Falkbeer Counter Gambit. Sometimes Black doesn't bite.

Other options include the Spanish Game, the Italian Game, the Scotch Game, the Vienna Game, the Bishop's Opening and a multitude of others. 1.e4 puts you on the front foot as you take the fight to Black. As someone who was fairly good at the game once said, 1.e4 is best by test. That was his opinion at least.

The Queen's Pawn Game is another way to make sure Fools Mate doesn't happen to you. This is actually an opening that changed chess history. Right up in the late 19th Century, tactics and sacrifices were top masters go to when facing their rivals. Crazy and beautiful tactical combinations were the norm, the stock and trade of the world's best.

The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz changed all that. He had spent the first half of his career playing tactics with the others. During the 1860s he established himself as the world's leading player. He began to evolve to positional chess across the 1870s in the face of a maelstrom of controversy and condemnation. Positional chess replaced the tactics of the Romantic Era.

By the 1920s, the Queen's Pawn Game was the one of the most popular openings in elite level chess. A total of 33 out of 34 games in the 1927 World Chess Championship between José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine started with the move 1.d4. Interestingly, even still today, a massive gap has formed between professionals and club players. While super-grandmasters heavily rely on 1.d4 for its strategic depth, 1.e4 remains vastly more popular among amateurs and online blitz players.