The Everything Chess Basics Book (10 page)

The Black king on e8 is in check from the White queen on h5. Get out of check by capturing the queen with the knight on f6.

Black has successfully gotten out of check, picking up a queen in the process.

The second way is the first thing inexperienced players think of, often the only thing. The king is in danger? Move him out of the way. But you must be careful to move the king to a safe square.

The Black king on e8 is in check from the White queen on h5. Move the king to the safe square f8.

Black has successfully gotten out of check by moving the king to a safe square.

The third way only works when your king is in check from a long-range piece with some squares in between the king and the attacking piece. You can block such a check by moving a friendly piece or pawn in the way of the attacker, thus cutting off its long-range power.

The Black king on e8 is in check from the White queen on h5. Block the check by moving the g-pawn to g6.

Black has successfully gotten out of check by blocking the dangerous e8-h5 diagonal with the g-pawn. Note that the g-pawn is now ready to capture the queen in the next move.

Saying Check

When you place your opponent’s king in check, you can say check if you wish, but this is not required. If your opponent is experienced, she will know that her king is in check and will go about trying to find a way out. The check itself is the warning. It is automatic and inherent in each check. Actually saying “check” is a reminder and that reminder is not required.

If your opponent is not very experienced, he may play a move that does not get his king out of check, thus forcing him to take the illegal move back and make another move that does get him out of check.

Checkmate

Just because you have three possible ways to get out of check doesn’t mean one of them will always be available. Sometimes only two of the possible ways might be available, or maybe even only one of the ways will be available in a particular position. But what happens if none of the possible solutions happens to present itself? What if you can’t get out of check? Then the game is over. Your king is trapped and you lose. This situation is known as
checkmate
.

Checkmate is a position where a king is in check and there is no saving move. Capturing the checking piece or pawn either is not possible or such a capture would leave the king in check anyway. Anywhere the king moves will still leave him in check. Blocking the check is either impossible or blocking one check will still leave the king in check from another direction.

Checkmate may come from the old Persian phrase
shah manad
, meaning “the king is helpless.” Some think it comes from
shah
mat
, meaning “the king is dead,” but how can that be? The king never dies in chess; he is trapped in a checkmate, not killed. That is perhaps the chief unique identifier of chess.

It is not as easy to checkmate a king as it is to capture something else. It isn’t enough to simply threaten the king; you also have to make sure there are no ways out.

Since checkmate is our objective in a game of chess, it’s a good idea to know what it looks like. So here are a few diagrams with checkmates depicted.

The Black king is checkmated. He is in check from the queen on f8 along the eighth rank and cannot escape to the seventh rank since the White king controls those squares.

The White king is checkmated. The rook controls h1 and g2, while the knight controls the g1 and h2 escape squares.

The Black king is checkmated. He is in check from the rook on a8 along the eighth rank and cannot escape to the seventh rank since the White rook on b7 controls those squares.