Check, Checkmate, and Stalemate
Okay, so you know how the pieces move. How do you win the game?
Check
When your king is being attacked by an enemy piece, your king is in "check", or in danger.
When your king is in check, you MUST save him immediately. Moves that don't save your king are illegal (not allowed).
There are three ways to get out of check:
Capture the attacker
Block with another piece
Move out of the way
The first (and usually best) way to get out of check is to capture the attacker.
Here, the enemy queen can be captured by the knight.
Now, there is no queen putting the king in check.
Another way to get out of check is to block the check with another piece.
The knight can move in between the enemy queen and the king.
Now, because the queen can't move through the knight, the king isn't in check.
The third way to get out of check is to move the king out of the way.
The king can move sideways to six different squares.
Now, the queen is not attacking the king.
When you move your king to get out of check, make sure you don't move to a square where the king is still in check.
In this position, if the king moved forward or backward, the queen would still put the king in check.
Both are illegal moves and are not allowed.
Checkmate
A "checkmate" (or just "mate") is a position where one player traps the other player's king in check.
Here, the black queen is putting the white king in check. Wherever the king goes, the queen will still be attacking him.
If the white king captures the black queen, then he is in check from the black king, so capturing the queen is an illegal move.
Because the white king is in check and has no legal moves, the game is over. Black wins!
Stalemate
A "stalemate" is a position where the player whose turn it is has no legal moves.
Here, it's white's turn. Wherever the white king goes, the black queen will be attacking him.
So this position is a stalemate! Neither player wins. Even if black had an extra queen, the game ends in a tie!
A stalemate happens when NONE of the player's pieces can move.
Here it's white's turn. Unlike the previous position, white still has a pawn on the board.
Even though the white king can't move, the pawn can, so the position is not a stalemate and the game continues.
Just like checkmates, stalemates can also happen when there are many pieces on the board. This famous stalemate happened in 1896 between two really good players.
In this position, it was white's turn. Even though there are many pieces on the board, white can't move any of them!
Can you see why? Take a look at where all of black's pieces are.
Note: There are three other ways for two players to make a tie:
Both players repeat moves three times. This is called "threefold repetition". If both players moved a piece back and forth, the game ends in a tie.
Both players move 50 times without capturing a piece or moving a pawn. A pawn can't be moved back, but other pieces can. So if no pawns move and no pieces disappear for 50 moves, no one is making any progress, so the game ends.
Both players don't have enough pieces to win. If both players have one of the following, the game ends immediately:
One knight
One bishop
Two knights
No pieces
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