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.

The name is often considered ironic, because it is used almost exclusively by beginners. Additionally, defending against it is very simple, and its failure typically results in the attacking side's position becoming heavily crippled.