The Everything Chess Basics Book (34 page)

Black to move is stalemate.

Black to move is stalemate.

Black to move is stalemate.

So how can you avoid those nasty stalemates? The best way to make sure you avoid stalemating a lone king is to be aware of the traps and look for them before making your move. Another way of avoiding these traps is to make sure the lone king has a spare square if you don’t plan on placing him in check. A third way to avoid these traps is to remember that the queen is a long-range piece, and keep her far away.

The Checkmates

There are more possible checkmates with queen and king versus lone king to go along with the added stalemate possibilities. Here is what they look like:

The White king covers what the queen doesn’t cover (b2).

The king and queen are a team.

You’ve seen this one before.

The plan is very much like the one you used with king and rook, except you can dispense with some parts of it. You still have to use the king as a helper, but you don’t always need to keep the opposition.

1. Kd5 Ke3 2. Qf5.

The lone king is forced to give way. 2. ... Kd2 3. Kd4 Kc2 4. Qh3 Kb2 5. Kc4 Ka2.

Careful! Do you see that 6. Qb3+ Ka1 7. Kc3 is stalemate? Keep your queen far away! 6. Kb4 Kb2 7. Qh2+ Kc1 8. Kc3 Kd1.

Do you see the checkmate? 9. Qd2 checkmate.

Practice these king and major piece against king checkmates against your computer or a willing partner. Once you know them cold you can go into a position, even quite a complicated position, in which you have an extra pawn, and you already know a good plan of action:

Step 1:
Exchange off all the pieces.

Step 2:
Push your extra pawn through to promotion.

Step 3:
Use your king and new queen (or rook) to checkmate the lone king.

The Two Bishops

Checkmate can always be forced with king and major piece against lone king. Checkmate can never even come about with king and minor piece against lone king. But with king and two minor pieces against lone king, the situation is more complicated. The plan in all the basic positions involving two minor pieces and king against king is to drive the lone king into a corner of the board. Getting him to the edge just isn’t enough.

The Checkmate

The easiest checkmate to get with king and two minor pieces versus lone king is the one in which your two minor pieces are both bishops. Here you can checkmate the lone king in any corner of the board. The checkmates look like this:

The e5-bishop delivers the check and covers g7. The d5-bishop takes away g8. The king takes away g7 and h7.

The plan in these endings is basically simple. Step 1 is to drive the lone king to the corner with the use of both your bishops and your king to methodically take squares away from him. Step 2 is to make sure your bishops have enough room to operate. Step 3 is to get your king out of their way at the last minute.

Working It Out

Although the concept is simple enough, it is very tricky to use the three pieces together as a team. The bishop’s power is more subtle than that of the major pieces. Just try to checkmate a lone king using two bishops like you did with two rooks, and you will soon see that it can’t be done. So we will look at a checkmate using two bishops and king versus king and work it out, move by move, to understand how it was done.