
The Vukovic Mating Pattern
Another puzzle theme generated from lichess.org dataIn this post I am writing about the Vukovic mating pattern that we recently added in lichess. This puzzle theme was generated by automatically searching liches.org data for the required relative positions, and then manually reviewing the results to ensure high quality, as previously described in my initial post.
The chess writer Vladimir Vuković (1898 - 1975) was born in 1898 in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in the territory of what is now Croatia. He was a titled player (IM and IA), who served as vice president in the Croation Chess Federation and wrote multiple chess related journal articles and books. His book 'The Art of Attack in Chess' is still a recommended read even today. Vuković has a checkmate pattern named after him: Vuković's Mate. It involves checkmating the enemy king with a rook in front of it, while a knight blocks off the adjacent escape squares (Wikipedia).
I have personally never played this pattern (as far as I can remember) and I have never seen it in anyone's game online either (and I do watch a few things with titled players on Twitch and YouTube). So, I guess this pattern is rather rare. Probably, because it requires excellent piece coordination between the knight and the rook, which perform the mate. Samples for this pattern are definitely even harder to obtain in comparison to the previously mentioned Kill Box pattern. I obtained 1804 Vukovic mating samples in comparison to 3673 Kill Box matting patterns, based on the same source data.
But even though, this pattern is so exotic, I still think it's useful to know. For one, its chess history, and for two, I might be using this one day too. So, while this might be not 100% interesting for a beginner like me, it should definitely be interesting for advanced players.
Underpromotion
If you are one of those, who have used a Vukovic mate in an OTB or online situation, then you have my congratulations. But know, that there is an even smaller group of people, who have actually used the Vukovic mating pattern in the context of underpromotion for the knight:
https://lichess.org/training/RdGo2
I have found in total 11 out of 1804 puzzles that delivered the check mate involving an underpromotion with the Vukovic mating pattern.
- https://lichess.org/training/5Lk7m
- https://lichess.org/training/2wjSK
- https://lichess.org/training/TAHBz
- https://lichess.org/training/UZrN7
- https://lichess.org/training/NOVGX
- https://lichess.org/training/e7RmT
- https://lichess.org/training/ezghS
- https://lichess.org/training/AjUyX
- https://lichess.org/training/80U0K
- https://lichess.org/training/puhnP
And there is one Vukovic mating pattern, where the matting knight is even pinned to it's own king, but the rook is still performing the work supported by the knight. I think that's a great example of fighting to the last stand. Trying to win, even when all hope is lost.
https://lichess.org/training/ZWdjO
Nice One
I also found some Vukovic mating patterns that where implemented in the middle of the chess board. I guess, some people have to review their definition of a Vukovic, because I have red in a few sites that it is always occurring at the edge of the board.
https://lichess.org/training/E5t8S
- https://lichess.org/training/lADzN
- https://lichess.org/training/NLbg8
- https://lichess.org/training/kDLK1
- https://lichess.org/training/O3mc8
- https://lichess.org/training/yrntk
- https://lichess.org/training/Lm11u
- https://lichess.org/training/5QO75
- https://lichess.org/training/JW15I
- https://lichess.org/training/VvpfT
- https://lichess.org/training/e5QwA
- https://lichess.org/training/KmgP5
- https://lichess.org/training/PDGoC
Conclusions
Adding more puzzles and better understanding their meaning through frequency in which they occur, and looking at cases that are exotic for the specific pattern to highlight its flexibility in application seems to be a useful exercise to me. Because it shows the beauty of chess and what pattern really means in practice. I hope you are enjoying insights like this and we may speak soon about another puzzle theme.