What is "fool's mate"

n. (context chess English) The quickest possible checkmate in the game of chess.

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Fool's Mate – White is checkmated. }}

Animation demonstrating Fool's Mate

In chess, Fool's Mate, also known as the "Two-Move Checkmate", is the checkmate in the fewest possible number of moves from the start of the game. A prime example consists of the moves:

resulting in the position shown. (The pattern can have slight variations: White might play 1.f4 instead of 1.f3 or move the g- pawn first, and Black might play 1...e6 instead of 1...e5.)

Fool's Mate is the debut solo album by Peter Hammill of progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator. The title is both a chess and tarot reference. It was produced by Trident Studios' in-house producer John Anthony. The album was recorded in 1971, in the midst of one of Van der Graaf Generator's most prolific periods. Hammill used the album to record a backlog of songs which were much shorter and simpler than his Van der Graaf Generator material, and declared on the original album sleeve: "This isn't intended to be any kind of statement of my present musical position, but at the same time, it is an album which involves a great deal of me, the person, basically a return to the roots."

Guest musicians on the album included the members of Van der Graaf Generator, members of his label mates Lindisfarne, and guitarist Robert Fripp.

The UK music press was generally very positive about Fool's Mate. Melody Maker saw "one of THE albums of the year".

The cover was designed by Paul Whitehead who at the time was the favourite cover artist for Van der Graaf Generator and fellow Charisma band Genesis.

Fool's Mate includes one of Hammill's most celebrated love songs, "Vision", which he still performs in concert.

In 2005 the album was issued in remastered form by EMI Virgin Records, supplemented with bonus demo recordings of several songs.

Fool's Mate is a 1989 West German drama film by the director Mathieu Carrière. The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.

Fool's mate can refer to:

• Fool's mate, the quickest possible checkmate in the game of chess
• Fool's Mate (album), by Peter Hammill
• Fool's Mate (1956 film), a 1956 French film
• Fool's Mate (1989 film), a 1989 German film

Fool's Mate is a twenty-eight-minute short film directed by Jacques Rivette. It stars Virginie Vitry as a wife cheating on her husband (Jacques Doniol-Valcroze). When her lover (Jean-Claude Brialy) buys her a mink coat, the adulterous pair hatch a plan to avoid her husband's questioning the coat's origins.

Fool's Mate is considered by some to be the first film of the French New Wave, or the movement's earliest antecedent. Released in 1956, the film is something of a curio thanks to a scene in which Rivette and New Wave contemporaries Claude Chabrol, Jean-Luc Godard, and François Truffaut are seen in the same room as party guests.