Basic Checkmates
Being a whole rook up wins nothing at all if you cannot finish. These are the three or four endings every player has to be able to deliver in their sleep - and the easiest of them is a ladder you can walk down right here.
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Winning a queen is not the same as winning the game. The position where you are a rook up and cannot finish is a draw, and the fifty-move rule is there to make sure of it.
So here are the endings worth being able to deliver without thinking. Start with the easiest, which needs no king at all.
The ladder
Two rooks, a lone king, and a method with no calculation in it: check on the king's rank, and cut off the rank behind with the other rook. You play White here.
You are White. Check along the rank the black king is on - and keep the other rook cutting off the rank behind it.
Notice what never happened: your king stayed on h1 the whole time. Two rooks do not need help.
King and rook
One rook cannot mate on its own. It can take away a rank or a file - but the squares immediately beside the enemy king have to be covered by your king.
The black king is on the edge and your king is facing it with one square between. One rook move finishes it.
The pattern to memorise is that picture: kings facing each other with one square between them, and the rook checking across. Everything else in this ending is just walking the enemy king to an edge until that picture is available.
What cannot mate at all
| you have | against a lone king |
|---|---|
| queen, or rook | forced mate, and quickly |
| two rooks | forced mate, no king needed |
| two bishops | forced mate, but it takes technique |
| bishop and knight | forced mate, and genuinely hard - up to 33 moves |
| knight alone, or bishop alone | impossible - the game is drawn on the spot |
| two knights | no forced mate; it can only happen if the defender helps |
Those last two rows are the rule called insufficient material, and it is not a matter of trying harder: there are simply not enough attacked squares to close every escape.
That is also why the fifty-move rule bites here. Fifty moves without a capture or a pawn move and either player may claim the draw - so an ending you cannot convert is not a win, however much material you have.
Try it
King and rook against a lone king, and the kings are already facing each other. Mate in one.
Common questions
- What are the basic checkmates?
- The forced mates against a lone king: two rooks (the ladder), king and queen, king and rook, and - much harder, and rare - two bishops or bishop and knight. Everything else is either impossible or a matter of first winning enough material to reach one of these.
- How do you checkmate with two rooks?
- The ladder. One rook checks along the rank the enemy king is on, the king is forced back a rank, and the other rook checks on that rank while the first cuts off the one behind. Repeat and the king is walked to the edge, where the next check is mate. It needs no king and no calculation, which is why it is the first mate anyone learns.
- How do you checkmate with a king and rook?
- Push the enemy king to an edge with the rook, then bring your own king face to face with it - the opposition - so the rook's check has nowhere to be answered. The rook alone can never do it: it takes away a rank or a file, and only the king can cover the squares beside the enemy king.
- Can you checkmate with a king and a knight?
- No. King and knight, or king and bishop, against a lone king is a draw by insufficient material - there are not enough attacked squares to close every escape. The game is declared drawn immediately, without either side having to prove anything.
- What is the fifty-move rule?
- If fifty moves pass with no capture and no pawn move, either player may claim a draw. It exists precisely for these endings: it puts a clock on your technique, so a winning position you cannot convert becomes a draw. King and rook needs at most about sixteen moves; bishop and knight can take over thirty.
- Why is bishop and knight mate so hard?
- Because you cannot mate a king in just any corner - only in a corner of the same colour as your bishop, so the king has to be driven from one corner to another with a bishop that covers half the board and a knight that moves slowly. It is the one basic mate most club players never learn, and quite reasonably: it almost never occurs.
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