Anastasia's mate is a checkmate where a knight and a rook or queen trap the king between the edge of the board and one of its own pieces. The knight takes away the squares beside that piece, and the rook or queen gives mate along the edge. Every puzzle on this page ends in Anastasia's mate, comes from a real game and is close to your puzzle rating. Solving them moves the same rating as Puzzle Training.
The usual picture is a black king on h7 with its own pawn on g7. A white knight stands on e7, where it covers g8 and g6, the two squares either side of the pawn. A rook or queen then checks along the h-file. The king cannot go up or down the file, because the rook covers it. It cannot step to g7, because its own pawn is there. And the knight has taken g8 and g6. That is the whole mate: an edge, a blocking piece, a knight and a heavy piece on the file.
The knight does not protect the rook and does not give check. Its only job is to guard the two squares next to the blocker. That is what separates Anastasia's mate from the Arabian mate, where the knight defends the rook right next to a king in the corner.
White has a queen on h5, a rook on d3 and a knight on e7. Black's king is on h8 behind pawns on f7, g7 and h7, with a rook on f8. White plays 1.Qxh7+. The king cannot run to g8, which both the queen and the knight cover, and no other black piece can take the queen, so Black's only legal move is 1...Kxh7. Now 2.Rh3 is checkmate. The rook covers h6 and h8 along the file, the pawn on g7 blocks g7, and the knight on e7 covers g8 and g6.
Replay the same position without the knight and the sacrifice fails: after 1.Qxh7+ Kxh7 2.Rh3+ the king escapes to g8 or g6. The knight on e7 is what turns the queen sacrifice into a win, so when you see an enemy knight on e7, or on e2 against a White king, look at the h-file.
The knight usually reaches e7 with a capture or a check, often landing there while attacking a king on g8. Once it is there, the attacker needs a way onto the h-file. Two routes come up again and again: a queen sacrifice on h7 that opens the file and drags the king forward, as in the example, and a rook lift along the third rank to h3. The queen can also be the piece that gives the final check on the file, which is why the pattern counts a rook or a queen as the mating piece.
It is not only a kingside pattern. The same geometry works on any edge of the board: a king on an edge file or rank, one of its own pieces next to it, and a knight taking the two squares beside that piece.
The knight is the heart of the attack, so remove it or push it away before it settles on e7. If it arrives, count the attacker's routes to the h-file and keep a piece that can block or capture there. Keeping the h-file closed matters a lot while that knight is near your king. Moving the blocking pawn can help too: with g7 empty, the king has a square the knight does not control, although that weakens the long diagonal.
When you open a puzzle, check where the enemy king touches the edge of the board, then look for a knight that covers the squares next to its blocker. If you have that, the task is usually to get a rook or queen onto the edge file, often by sacrifice. If you are stuck, the hint shows which piece to move first, then the move. After you solve, the full line appears beside the board.
Anastasia's mate is typically a mate in 2 or a mate in 3, and it pairs well with hook mate puzzles, another knight and rook team.
For mixed tactics at your level, use Puzzle Training. For speed, try Puzzle Storm, and to repeat a fixed set until it is automatic, the Woodpecker Method. Elo Maxing rates you on every tactical motif and serves the weakest next, and Pattern Drill builds practice from the patterns your own games show you miss. For more on training tactics by motif, read the Elo Maxing guide.
A checkmate where a knight and a rook or queen trap the king between the edge of the board and one of its own pieces, with the rook or queen giving mate along the edge.
Yes. Both names describe the same knight and rook or queen pattern.
It covers the two squares next to the piece that blocks the king, such as g8 and g6 when the king is on h7 behind a pawn on g7. It does not give check.
In the Arabian mate the king is in the corner and the knight protects the rook next to it. In Anastasia's mate the knight only covers escape squares and the rook checks from along the edge.