This book series has been long in making, for a good reason: I have spent years collecting checkmates through history – from Lucena’s work (1497) and onward. Those with names especially interested me, and so I made an effort to categorize these mates. However, I didn’t know exactly what to do with all these checkmates – until I got the idea of applying names from a list to the checkmates for extra points. After this revelation, it didn’t take me long to organize the material into first 3 books, and then later 4.
Checkmate Quiz 1 contains a tour de force through the history of checkmates with names where I go through 61 mates. This introduction is followed by 29 quizzes on level 1-3.
Checkmate Quiz 2 contains 59 quizzes on level 1-4. The standard quiz has 6 puzzles, but this book also contains quizzes with 12 puzzles (double quizzes) and mixed level quizzes. The total number of puzzles adds up to more than 440.
Checkmate Quiz 3 contains 59 quizzes on all five levels 1-5. In addition to the checkmates already introduced in book 1, this book introduces 5 more suffocation mates as well as 4 composition mates. Furthermore, there are chapters on The Modenese Masters and the Most Fantastic Chess Moves Ever Played. These sections have a brief introduction followed by designated quizzes where the checkmates appear.
This book nicely rounds off book 1-3 in the series with a total of more than 1,000 puzzles.
Checkmate Quiz 4 contains epaulette mates. It turns out that there is much more to this theme than meets the eye, and an interesting introduction covers epaulette mates with all pieces (except the king) where the enemy king is mated along the back rank and ‘on the side’. Many study composers have had original ideas here.
The connection to book 1-3 is that the checkmate quizzes are structured the same way, with the same 61 checkmates – just with the new epaulette mates added in this final book of the series.
All 4 books are in A4 format for a better reading and quiz-solving experience.
This preface cannot be found in any of the four books Checkmate Quiz 1-4. I decided against it as I only wanted to include the most important material in order to solve the checkmate quizzes.
