Stalemate in Chess

What is stalemate?

Stalemate is a position in which the player whose turn it is has no legal move and their king is not in check. Under the FIDE Laws of Chess the game ends there and then as a draw, scored ½-½. It does not matter that the other side may be a queen and a rook ahead.

That is why stalemate is the most painful mistake in a won endgame, and the best friend of a player who is losing. Every winning player needs to know how to avoid it, and every defender should know when to aim for it.

Stalemate vs checkmate

The difference can be a single square. Below, White has a king on f7 and a queen on g2 against Black's lone king on h8. 1.Qg7# is checkmate: the queen gives check, and the king on f7 protects her. 1.Qg6?? looks just as strong but gives no check, and Black's king has no square to go to. Draw.

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"No legal move" means no move with any piece. A blocked pawn cannot move, and neither can a pinned piece whose every move would expose its own king. If a single pawn can still step forward, it is not stalemate, and that pawn must move.

The stalemate patterns to know

1. The queen a knight's jump from a cornered king

This is the stalemate that ruins more king and queen endings than any other. With the enemy king on a8, a queen on b6 or c7 covers a7, b7 and b8 at once without giving check. The rule of thumb: when the lone king is in a corner and your queen is a knight's move away from it, stop and count its squares.

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The safe method is to leave the defending king a little room while your own king walks over to help. Only take the last free square with a move that gives check. The full technique is in basic chess endgames.

2. The king and pawn ending

When the pawn reaches the seventh rank with the defending king on the queening square, everything can depend on whose move it is. In the position below, if it is Black to move, the only move is 1...Kf7, and 2.Kd7 followed by 3.e8=Q wins. If it is White to move, there is no win: 1.Ke6 is stalemate, and every other king move abandons the pawn to 1...Kxe7.

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Winning these endings depends on reaching the right version of the position, which is what the opposition is about. With a rook pawn (the a- or h-pawn) it is even harder, because a defending king in the corner often cannot be driven out at all: with the Black king on h8, a White pawn on h7 and the White king on g6, Black to move is stalemated.

3. The desperado rook

The defender's favourite. If your king and pawns cannot move, your last piece becomes a "desperado": you offer it with check on every move. If the opponent takes it, you have no legal move left, and it is stalemate.

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Black's queen on d4 covers g1, the pawn on h3 covers g2, and White's h-pawn is blocked. So 1.Rg8+! and if 1...Kxg8, White is stalemated. If the king steps to h7 instead, 2.Rg7+ keeps going, and taking the rook with either the king or the queen is stalemate again. The most famous real example is Evans vs Reshevsky at the 1963-64 U.S. Championship, often called the swindle of the century. Evans was lost, so he gave up his queen with check and then offered his rook with check. Taking the rook meant stalemate and refusing it meant endless rook checks, so a game Reshevsky should have won ended in a draw.

4. A whole army that cannot move

Stalemate does not need a bare king. Sam Loyd composed this ten-move game in which Black is stalemated with a queen, two rooks, a bishop and a knight still on the board: 1.e3 a5 2.Qh5 Ra6 3.Qxa5 h5 4.h4 Rah6 5.Qxc7 f6 6.Qxd7+ Kf7 7.Qxb7 Qd3 8.Qxb8 Qh7 9.Qxc8 Kg6 10.Qe6.

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How to avoid stalemate when you are winning

1. Ask one question before every move: after this, does my opponent have a legal move? Count the king's squares and look at every pawn.
2. Leave the king some air. Shrink its box one step at a time, and only take the last square with check.
3. Mind the pawns. When the defender's only moves are pawn moves, blocking or capturing the last mobile pawn can leave nothing to move.
4. Do not grab every piece. Capturing a desperado rook or queen is often exactly what the defender wants. Moving your king away from the checks usually wins.
5. Consider underpromotion. If a new queen would stalemate, a rook often wins just as surely. See pawn promotion and underpromotion.

If you reach a winning ending and cannot see the finish, set the position up on the best move calculator. Stockfish will show the mating line, and you can see where the stalemate traps are. For a single position, the checkmate checker tells you whether it is checkmate or stalemate, lists every mate in one and warns you about each move that would stalemate.

How to use stalemate to save a lost game

• Run to the corner. Against a rook pawn, a king that reaches the queening corner usually draws, often by stalemate.
• Lock your own pawns. Pawns that are blocked cannot move, which takes you one step closer to having no legal move.
• Get rid of your last mobile piece with check. That is the desperado idea above. A check cannot be ignored, so the opponent must take, move away, or block.
• Keep playing. Opponents relax when they are winning, especially short of time. Many stalemates happen because the winning side promoted to a queen without looking.

Stalemate and the other ways to draw

Stalemate is one of the five common ways a game ends in a draw:

• Stalemate: the player to move has no legal move and is not in check.
• Threefold repetition: the same position occurs three times with the same player to move.
• Fifty-move rule: fifty moves by each side with no capture and no pawn move.
• Insufficient material: neither side can possibly checkmate, for example king against king, or king and a single bishop or knight against king.
• Agreement: both players agree to a draw.