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30-396: Checkmate is a situation in the game of chess and other activities which results in defeat. Checkmate or Checkmates may also refer to: Checkmate In chess, the king is never actually captured—the player loses as soon as the player's king is checkmated. In formal games, it is usually considered good etiquette to resign an inevitably lost game before being checkmated. If

60-425: A draw either by the fifty-move rule or stalemate . Opinions differ as to whether or not a player should learn this checkmate procedure. James Howell omits the checkmate with two bishops in his book because it rarely occurs but includes the bishop and knight checkmate. Howell says that he has had it three times (always on the defending side) and that it occurs more often than the checkmate with two bishops. On

90-408: A rook , which can occur on any edge of the board. The black king can be on any square on the edge of the board, the white king is in opposition to it, and the rook can check from any square on the rank or file (assuming that it cannot be captured). The second diagram shows a slightly different position where the kings are not in opposition but the defending king must be in a corner. With the side with

120-407: A corner). With the side with the bishops to move, checkmate can be forced in at most nineteen moves, except in some very rare positions (0.03% of the possible positions). The third checkmate position is possible but not forceable. It is not too difficult for two bishops to force checkmate, with the aid of their king. Two principles apply: In the position from Seirawan, White wins by first forcing

150-426: A game. Before about 1600, the game could also be won by capturing all of the opponent's pieces, leaving just a bare king . This style of play is now called annihilation or robado . In Medieval times , players began to consider it nobler to win by checkmate, so annihilation became a half-win for a while, until it was abandoned. Two major pieces ( queens or rooks ) can easily force checkmate on

180-420: A player is not in check but has no legal moves, then it is stalemate , and the game immediately ends in a draw . A checkmating move is recorded in algebraic notation using the hash symbol "#", for example: 34.Qg3#. A checkmate may occur in as few as two moves on one side with all of the pieces still on the board (as in fool's mate , in the opening phase of the game), in a middlegame position (as in

210-443: A rook and a queen. There are four fundamental checkmates when one side has only their king and the other side has only the minimum material needed to force checkmate, i.e. (1) one queen , (2) one rook , (3) two bishops on opposite-colored squares, or (4) a bishop and a knight . The king must help in accomplishing all of these checkmates. If the winning side has more material, checkmates are easier. The checkmate with

240-402: A rook or queen along a back rank (that is, the row on which the pieces [not pawns] stand at the start of the game) in which the mated king is unable to move up the board because the king is blocked by friendly pieces (usually pawns) on the second rank. An example of a back-rank checkmate is shown in the diagram. It is also known as the corridor mate . The scholar's mate (also known as

270-405: Is a checkmate by the bishop, with the black king in the corner. The bishop can be on other squares along the diagonal, the white king and knight have to be on squares that attack g8 and h7. The second position is a checkmate by the knight, with the black king on a side square next to the corner. The knight can be on other squares that check the black king. The white king must be on a square to protect

300-415: Is an example of a stalemate, from the end of a 1966 endgame study by A. H. Branton. White has just moved 1.Na3+? If Black moves 1...Kc1!, then White must move his bishop to save it because if the bishop is captured , the position is a draw because of the insufficient material rule. But after any bishop move, the position is a stalemate. A back-rank checkmate is a checkmate delivered by

330-452: Is much closer to the original intent of the game being not to kill a king but to leave him with no viable response other than surrender, which better matches the origin story detailed in the Shahnameh . In modern parlance, the term checkmate is a metaphor for an irrefutable and strategic victory. In early Sanskrit chess ( c. 500–700), the king could be captured and this ended

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360-408: Is the checkmate of a lone king by the opponent's two bishops and king. The superior side is able to drive the lone king into a corner and force mate using the two bishops and king collaboratively. The only stipulation is that the two bishops must move on opposite-colored squares. Accomplishing the mate requires a maximum of 19 moves. The king and bishops cooperate to drive

390-637: Is the past participle of "mā" verbal root. Others maintain that it means "the King is dead", as chess reached Europe via the Arab world , and Arabic māta ( مَاتَ ) means "died" or "is dead". Moghadam traced the etymology of the word mate . It comes from a Persian verb mandan ( ماندن ), meaning "to remain", which is cognate with the Latin word maneō and the Greek menō ( μένω , which means "I remain"). It means "remained" in

420-807: The 1956 game called the Game of the Century between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer ), or after many moves with as few as three pieces in an endgame position. The term checkmate is, according to the Barnhart Etymological Dictionary, an alteration of the Persian phrase "shāh māt" ( شاه مات ) which means "the King is helpless". Persian "māt" applies to the king but in Sanskrit "māta", also pronounced "māt", applied to his kingdom "traversed, measured across, and meted out" thoroughly by his opponent; "māta"

450-406: The basic checkmate positions with a queen , which can occur on any edge of the board. Naturally, the exact position can vary from the diagram. In the first of the checkmate positions, the queen is directly in front of the opposing king and the white king is protecting its queen. In the second checkmate position, the kings are in opposition and the queen mates on the rank (or file ) of

480-405: The bishop and cover a square not covered by the knight. With the side with the bishop and knight to move, checkmate can be forced in at most thirty-three moves from any starting position, except those in which the defending king is initially forking the bishop and knight and it is not possible to defend both. However, the mating process requires accurate play, since a few errors could result in

510-440: The black king to the side of the board, then to a corner, and then checkmates. It can be any side of the board and any corner. The process is: This is not the shortest forced checkmate from this position. Müller and Lamprecht give a fifteen-move solution; however, it contains an inaccurate move by Black (according to endgame tablebases ). Avoid stalemate One example of a stalemate is this position, where 1.Kb6 (marked with

540-509: The edge of the board using a technique known as the ladder checkmate . The process is to put the two pieces on adjacent ranks or files and force the king to the side of the board by using one piece to check the king and the other to cut it off from going up the board. In the illustration, White checkmates by forcing the Black king to the edge, one row at a time. The ladder checkmate can be used to checkmate with two rooks, two queens, or

570-513: The enemy king to an edge of the board, and then into a corner to deliver the mate. "The process, though a bit lengthy, is fascinating because it gives us a glimpse of the power of the two bishops on the open board." Three basic checkmate positions are possible via the two bishops checkmate. The first is a checkmate in the corner. The second position is a checkmate on a side square next to the corner square (this position can theoretically occur anywhere along an edge, but can only be forced adjacent to

600-457: The four-move checkmate) is the checkmate achieved by the moves: The moves might be played in a different order or in slight variation, but the basic idea is the same: the queen and bishop combine in a simple mating attack on f7 (or f2 if Black is performing the mate). There are also other ways to checkmate in four moves. The fool's mate , also known as the two-move checkmate, is the quickest possible checkmate. A prime example consists of

630-460: The game. The Persians (c. 700–800) introduced the idea of warning that the king was under attack (announcing check in modern terminology). This was done to avoid the early and accidental end of a game. Later, the Persians added the additional rule that a king could not be moved into check or left in check. As a result, the king could not be captured, and checkmate was the only decisive way of ending

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660-411: The king. With the side with the queen to move, checkmate can be forced in at most ten moves from any starting position, with optimal play by both sides, but usually fewer moves are required. In positions in which a pawn has just promoted to a queen, at most nine moves are required. In the position diagrammed, White checkmates easily by confining the black king to a rectangle and shrinking

690-424: The moves: resulting in the position shown. (The pattern can have slight variations, for example White might play f4 instead of f3 or move the g- pawn first, and Black might play ...e6 instead of ...e5.) Glossary of chess#major pieces This glossary of chess explains commonly used terms in chess , in alphabetical order. Some of these terms have their own pages, like fork and pin . For

720-478: The other hand, Jeremy Silman includes the checkmate with two bishops but not the bishop plus knight checkmate because he has had it only once and his friend John Watson has never had it. Silman says: "... mastering it would take a significant chunk of time. Should the chess hopeful really spend many of his precious hours he's put aside for chess study learning an endgame he will achieve (at most) only once or twice in his lifetime?" Avoid stalemate This position

750-402: The queen is the most common, and easiest to achieve. It often occurs after a pawn has queened . A checkmate with the rook is also common, but a checkmate with two bishops or with a bishop and knight occurs infrequently. The two-bishop checkmate is fairly easy to accomplish, but the bishop and knight checkmate is difficult and requires precision. The first two diagrams show representatives of

780-429: The rectangle to force the king to the edge of the board: Avoid stalemate The winning side must be careful to not stalemate the opposing king, whereas the defender would like to get into such a position. There are five general types of stalemate positions that can occur, which the stronger side must avoid. The first two are more common. The first diagram shows the basic checkmate position with

810-473: The rook to move, checkmate can be forced in at most sixteen moves from any starting position. Again, see Wikibooks – Chess/The Endgame for a demonstration of how the king and rook versus king mate is achieved. In the third diagram position, White checkmates by confining the black king to a rectangle and shrinking the rectangle to force the king to the edge of the board: Avoid stalemate There are two stalemate patterns: The two bishops checkmate

840-474: The sense of "abandoned" and the formal translation is "surprised", in the military sense of "ambushed". "Shāh" ( شاه ) is the Persian word for the monarch. Players would announce "Shāh" when the king was in check. "Māt" ( مات ) is a Persian adjective for "at a loss", "helpless", or "defeated". So the king is in mate when he is ambushed, at a loss, helpless, defeated, or abandoned to his fate. In modern Persian,

870-442: The word mate depicts a person who is frozen, open-mouthed, staring, confused and unresponsive. The words "stupefied" or "stunned" bear close correlation. So a possible alternative would be to interpret mate as "unable to respond". A king being in mate (shah-mat) then means a king is unable to respond, which would correspond to there being no response that a player's king can make to the opponent's final move. This interpretation

900-411: The x) would be stalemate. Of the basic checkmates, this is the most difficult one to force , because these two pieces cannot form a linear barrier to the enemy king from a distance. Also, the checkmate can be forced only in a corner that the bishop controls. Two basic checkmate positions are shown with a bishop and a knight , or the bishop and knight checkmate . The first position

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