Scholar's mate

	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Scholar's mate – Black is checkmated.

In chess, scholar's mate is the checkmate achieved by the following moves, or similar:

1. e4 e5

2. Qh5 Nc6

3. Bc4 Nf6??

4. Qxf7#

The same mating pattern may be reached by various move orders. For example, White might play 2.Bc4. In all variations, the basic idea is the same: the queen and bishop combine in a simple mating attack, occurring on f7 for White or on f2 for Black.

Scholar's mate is sometimes referred to as the four-move checkmate, although there are other ways for checkmate to occur in four moves.