The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse

With talk these days of apocalyptical current events, I want to address some nice knight checkmates with an increasing number of horsies involved.

The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse are mentioned in Revelation in the Bible. Later commentators have often identified them as portents of the end times and personifying Conquest, War, Famine, and Death.

Horseman 1: Philidor's Legacy

This is a well known checkmate, featuring a lone knight and named after prodigious chess player and renowned composer François-André Danican Philidor (1726-95). He was considered the best chess player in the world for his time and knew about war and death well, having died around the time of the French Revolution. He had been placed on the Revolutionary banishment list by the French government, because of many of his social connections and so stayed in England for his final few years of life.

His name has been attached to a checkmating pattern called Philidor's Legacy, despite there not being any surviving examples of him ever playing it.

This is one example of it, played by another person considered to be the world's number one player, Paul Morphy, at the time this game was played:

Morphy - Schrufer, Paris, 1859

Horseman 2: Hans Niemann's mate

This is a checkmate featuring 2 knights. Hans Niemann is no stranger to controversy and there are videos available describing ex-world champion Vladimir Kramnik's recent bizarre mini match of 2 games with him. This position is from a 100+ move game he played in the Chicago Open in 2015.

Hans Niemann - Vignesh Panchanatham, Illinois, 2015

Horseman 3: Isaac Kashdan's mate

This checkmate features three knights. Isaac Kashdan was a grandmaster who won the US Open twice - in 1938 (jointly) and 1947.

Boris Siff - Isaac Kashdan, New York, 1948

Horseman 4: 4 knight cube mate

This is a checkmate I had in a recent game.

Jagulep - Showmeyourskills, Lichess, 2023

The opponent's name turned out to be quite prophetic.

The description of the conquering horse in Revelation (King James Version) is:

"And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow: and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer."

My queen's knight ended up conquering in that game.

Joe Biden recently announced a new 'COVID' injection to be available soon. Since Greek for bow is 'toxon' and Latin for crown is 'corona', hopefully the results will not be too apocalyptical but I think I'll abstain.