What checkmate is

Check that cannot be answered. Not a capture, not a threat: the game simply stops, one move before the king would be taken, and the player who delivered it wins.

Check plus no legal move
Game ends immediately
King is never captured

Checkmate is a position where the king is in check and there is no legal move to answer it. The game ends immediately. The king is not captured and never comes off the board, which is a small detail that matters a lot when you get to stalemate.

The three-part test

A check is mate when all three of these fail at once, and beginners typically check one of them and stop. That is why so many games under 1000 contain a mate that both players walked past.

The king cannot move to any safe square, including squares occupied by his own pieces, which count as blocked.
The checking piece cannot be captured by anything, king included, and if the king is the only candidate the piece must be undefended.
The line cannot be blocked. Automatic against a knight or a pawn, since neither can be interposed against.

The back rank mate

The commonest mate in chess. The rook arrives on the eighth rank, the king cannot move because his own pawns are in the way, the rook cannot be taken, and nothing can get between them.

1.Ra8#

Checkmate, confirmed by the engine. Three of Black's own pawns are doing the work for White.

The prevention costs one move: push a pawn to give the king luft, or leave a rook watching the back rank. If you want to see it a hundred times until it becomes automatic, the back rank mate page is where to go.

The fastest mate in chess

Fool's mate, two moves

Fool's mate, in four half moves. It only happens if White opens with two pawn moves that both weaken the e1 to h4 diagonal, which is why it turns up in beginner games and nowhere else.

1.f3 e5 2.g4 Qh4#

Checkmate on move two. The white king has no square, nothing can take the queen, and the diagonal cannot be blocked.

The one everybody actually meets

Scholar's mate, four moves

Scholar's mate. Both the queen and the bishop hit f7, which is defended only by the black king, and there is no third defender in the starting position.

1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nc6 3.Qh5 Nf6 4.Qxf7#

Checkmate. Black's third move was the mistake: anything that covered f7 or hit the queen would have been fine.

Checkmate, resignation and the clock

Most games between decent players never reach mate. A player who is clearly lost resigns, which is normal and not rude, and below club level games are often decided on time instead. Mate is still what all of it is aiming at: the reason a piece down matters is that it eventually turns into a mate you cannot stop.

Note one exception involving the clock. If your opponent runs out of time but you have no material that could ever mate, the game is a draw and not a win.

White to move. Two moves. The first one is forcing and the second one finishes it.

Show the answer

28...Rxf2 29.Qa8+ Qc8 30.Qxc8#

The line ends in checkmate. The position is from a real game on Lichess, rated 544 in their puzzle pool, and it is one of the positions in the Mate in Two skill in the trainer.

Learn to see mate before you look for itMate in one, mate in two, mate in three and every named mating pattern, as graded drills with real positions. Free, no account.Practise checkmate

Questions people ask

What is the difference between check and checkmate?

Check is an attack on the king that you must answer this move. Checkmate is the same attack with no legal answer available, and it ends the game. Every checkmate is a check; almost no check is checkmate.

Is the king captured in checkmate?

No. The game ends at checkmate, one move before the capture would happen, and the king stays on the board. This is why stalemate is a draw rather than a loss: with no check and no legal move there is nothing to capture and nothing to play.

What is the fastest checkmate?

Fool's mate, in two moves, and it requires White to play two specific bad pawn moves in a row. Scholar's mate takes four and is far more common because it involves plausible-looking developing moves aimed at f7.

Can you checkmate with just a king and a bishop?

No. King and bishop against a lone king cannot force mate, and the rules treat it as an immediate draw by insufficient material. King and knight is the same. King and two bishops, or king with bishop and knight, can mate, though the second one is genuinely hard.

Checkmate sits under How a game ends in the reference. Nearby: