Do you know the basic checkmates? Knowing the basic mates is like knowing the alphabet. The alphabet of chess. I’m not going to show you all of them here in this article, but what I am going to do is show you one of them in a way so that you will never forget it. I went to Lake Michigan to visit my friend and her daughter. She wanted to learn chess. She wanted to see the basic mates. So we showed her one of them, the one with the rook and the knight. Did you know that if you get your opponent’s king into the corner you can checkmate him with just a rook and a knight? Can you picture how it’s done? Try it on your own with a board first and then watch our video where we did it in sand castle form!