Smothered Mates

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1. Here my partner got mated by a smothered mate:

In this earlier position he is already in trouble.  He can't take the queen because Nh3+ is threatened.  He can't play Nxf3 because of Q@h1#.  gxf3 isn't likely to hold too long, maybe because of @g2.  Let's go further back to find his earlier mistake.

Here he is already in trouble with the pawn on g4.  He takes on f6.  It would be better to take Nxg4 hxg4 Qxg4.  The half-open h-file is not a big problem.  The queen is badly place, but it should be able to get to safety.

2.  Here I was losing, but with the help of good play on the part of my partner, Compound7885, I was able to get a win with N@e7#.  He did not castle queenside even though at first glance it might look that way.

I play @f6. This is a bad situation for my opponent unless he gets pieces to mate me with.  But my partner has the same amount of time as him, and will avoid giving the pieces he needs.  Black has devoted himself to attacking and has no pieces for defense.  If before this move had a bishop at e7, it might have helped.  If he had a knight, or better yet a pawn at f6, that would help.  Even if the knight moves away, it still would cover f6.  Here B@f8 might be the last line of defense.  Rg8 is not good because of @h7.

Here he has no good remedy and plays Kd7.  It seems that I only need one more knight to mate him.  He is down on time and his partner has a knight in the middle of the board. On the other board, both players have two queens.  I play B@c5+.   I don't see a mate if he goes to c6.  In general it is not a good idea to bring the king towards the center, but in retrospect, even if there was a mate after Kc6, I might not have found it.