Did you know that even though more checkmates are possible in the center they usually occur on the top and bottom ranks because kings are more often trapped near the edges in actual games?
The left chessboard shows a heatmap of the number of possible checkmate configurations for the king on each square. Darker squares indicate more potential checkmates. The right chessboard shows where kings are actually checkmated in games. Darker squares indicate squares where checkmates most frequently occur.
*These figures have not yet been formally peer reviewed and are intended as exploratory