Lesson
White to move. Main line: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 b6 3. Nc3 Bb7 4. f3 d5 5. cxd5 Nxd5 6. e4 Nxc3 7. bxc3 e6 8. Bb5+ Nd7 9. Ne2 Be7 10. O-O a6 11. Bd3 c5 12. Bb2 Qc7 13. f4 Nf6 14. Ng3 h5 15. Qe2 h4 16. Nh1 Nh5 17. Qg4 O-O-O 18. Rae1 Kb8 19. f5 e5 20. d5 c4 21. Bc2 Bc5+ 22. Nf2 g6 23. fxg6 Rdg8 24. Bc1 Bc8 25. Qf3 Rxg6 26. Kh1 Ng3+ 27. hxg3 hxg3+ 28. Nh3 Bxh3 29. gxh3 Rxh3+ 30. Kg2 Rh2#
Elite players normally resign once the result is forced, so the final mating move rarely appears on the score sheet. In this game Bogoljubow allowed Alekhine to complete the attack.
Alekhine first opens the h-file with 26...Ng3+! and 27...hxg3+. The bishop removes the knight on h3, after which the rook reaches h3 with check and follows the king to h2.
The final move 30...Rh2# is not merely a mate threat or an announced continuation: the checkmate was played on the board, making this game unique in World Championship match history.
Why checkmate almost never happens at this level
Strong players resign. Once a position is clearly lost, playing on to be mated conveys nothing except that you were unwilling to accept the result, so the actual mate is left off the board.
That convention makes this game a genuine rarity: Bogoljubow–Alekhine, game 8 of the 1929 World Championship match, is generally recorded as the only World Championship game to have finished with checkmate actually played.
How a mate ends up on the board anyway
A mate survives to the scoresheet when it arrives faster than the loser expects — the alternative to being mated has to be equally hopeless, or the mate has to be missed until it is unavoidable.
Replaying it, the final position is not an exotic pattern. It is an ordinary mating net, which is precisely what makes it a good record to have.
The rarity is a social convention, not a chess fact — resignation hides most mates at master level.
Play out mating nets in your own games regardless. The pattern recognition is what transfers.
Records like this are worth checking against a source; “the only ever” claims in chess are often repeated without one.
Source: World Chess Championship 1929 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1929
Source: Alexander Alekhine — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Alekhine
Source: Efim Bogoljubow — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efim_Bogoljubow