Questions tagged [checkmate]
Questions relating to checkmating.
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What are the commonest and rarest checkmating moves in the Lichess (or similar) database?
I'm curious what checkmating move is the most common in the Lichess database? That is, the properly algebraically specified move, for a given color, like "White plays Re8#".
Answers for ...
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Most delaying moves before checkmate
Consider a position where if was player A's turn, they could make a series of moves ("the mating sequence") with forced mate.
However, it is player B's turn, and they can make a series of &...
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The Most Frequent Checkmate Patterns
Of the main checkmate patterns which are the most frequent (in games that ended with a checkmate)? Based on chess literature the Back-rank mate is arguably the most common, I would expect the Queen ...
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Most mate options after 6 moves
Found this construction problem from '83 and liked it. I don't know the best solution (yet), and maybe you can top it anyway.
Consider the (help) "game" 1.e4 a6 2.Bc4 a5 3.Qh5 a4. Now White ...
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Mate in 4. Difficult. Going crazy
A friend sent me this puzzle. He insists that Black has a mate in 4. I just can't find it.
Can someone see a mate in 4 moves here?
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Are Stockfish "Mate in X" counts ever over-optimistic?
When Stockfish gives an evaluation of, say #15, I have seen cases where this is pessimistic, and it subsequently revises its evaluation to say #9.
Are there cases where it thinks it can mate in 15, ...
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Why does Stockfish only gives -28 to a game with only a W pawn and a B rook remaining, while it should be resolved in perfect play?
In this position (W resigned) with only a pawn and a rook remaining Stockfish should have resolved the game and say "Mate in xx" (with perfect play).
However Stockfish is said to have ...
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Questions about legality of last move
Question for FIDE Arbiters and similar knowledgeable folk...
FIDE Law Article 5.1.1 The game is won by the player who has checkmated his/her opponent’s
king. This immediately ends the game, provided ...
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2
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Mate in 2 from "The soviet Chess Primer" but wrong
I found this exercise on page 51 of the "The soviet chess primer" and I think there is a mistake. Chess.com analysis says there is a mate in 13 moves.
I'm correct thinking there is a mistake?...
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Mate Solving or problem solving software
I have some positions in my games which engine analysis indicates that some lines (not the ones I played) lead to a checkmate in 6 or 7 or 10 moves.
But normal engines are not reliable here so I use ...
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2
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Timeout vs Insufficient Material
This is not a new topic but it did happen in my game at chess.com. I was playing white and played the only legal move h7 and was checkmated on the next move.
My question is: What will happen if I just ...
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Unique checkmates count analysis
How many unique checkmates are there from this starting position?
I can only see 5 lines on lichess from a game I've played and have tried several different moves.
Mate in 4 is the fastest but I've ...
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A puzzle where you must find the mate in 3 solution but avoid mate in 2 and mate in 1 solutions?
I want to see if a puzzle could exist where you must avoid finding mate in 1 or 2 but just find the mate in 3 solution.
This is not subjective it is a hard math problem to make a move that forces mate ...
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How much would chess change if Black always had the last move?
In a hypothetical minor variant, could White's first-move advantage be compensated for by Black's right to last move?
Normally, White wins have White play N+1 plies to Black's N. How would the game ...
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Why did I lose -> I thought I can swap king and castle to avoid checkmate? [duplicate]
[FEN "6nN/Bp1k2pp/2n5/p7/Q4R1P/5pP1/P3qN2/4K2R w K - 0 1"]
As you can see my king got checkmated through the enemy's queen and pawn.
My question is, why is this a checkmate? I haven't moved ...
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Checkmate in ω² moves with finitely many pieces
The post Checkmate in ω
moves? has inspired a lot of discussion and mathematical research into positions on an infinite chessboard where white can mate in a transfinite amount of moves. The current ...
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The king had a place to move, how is this checkmate?
The king had a place to move, how is this checkmate?
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Running out of time mid promotion to checkmate. Who wins?
In a casual blitz game I had with my friend, my last move was to promote a pawn, to ladder mate my opponent (there was already a rook on the 7th). I moved the pawn, but while I was reaching for the ...
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Mate-in-N problems where N scales indefinitely with board size
Motivation - Long range mating patterns
This question is inspired by my recent interest in infinite chess and the post on MathOverflow Checkmate in ω moves?. Since my chess endgame skills are quite ...
4
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King and short rook checkmate
Suppose White has a king and a range-x rook and black has a bare king on a chessboard with dimensions y times y.
What is the minimum value of x such that for all sufficiently large y, White, moving ...
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Can a pawn move 2 spaces if doing so would cause en passant mate?
You cannot place your King in check, the en passant could be refused and because you are not placing your King in check directly it seems you can move your pawn 2 spaces. However, just like castling, ...
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Are there any hard mate-in-2 problems?
I'm interested to know if there are any particularly challenging mate-in-2 problems. Since the second move will be essentially forced, the problem essentially comes down to 1 move. Typically, the ...
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What is the fastest loss by a GM in a FIDE classical game?
What is the shortest FIDE classical game a grandmaster lost? It can be either resigning or checkmate. The opponent doesn't necessarily need to be GM. Forfeits don't count. Only serious games count, ...
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Can a castling checkmate be engineered from this position?
I get the following position pretty often in online bullet as White. It's mate in a few (for instance, 9. Bf4+ Kc5 10. Qd5+ Kb6 11.Qb5#). Needless to say, the setup is dubious.
This looks like a prime ...
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Can a rook and King checkmate a bare King without zugzwang?
Can a rook and a king force a checkmate against a bare king that starts in the center if the opponent was allowed to pass?
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How often do super GMs blunder mate in 1?
Yesterday (5th April 2023) Nakamura blundered a pretty mate in 1 against Caruana in the Chessable Masters:
[Title "Caruana - Nakamura, Chessable Masters 2023"]
[fen "Rb6/5kp1/8/1r1P3P/...
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My opponent won despite his king having no legal moves
My opponent won despite his king having no legal moves. Why?
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Longest sequence of unique legal moves for one player, always in check and ending in checkmate
I recently played a bullet game, in which I thought I was in checkmate, but then realized I had one legal move, this then repeated again and again 6 times until ultimately I was in checkmate. I share ...
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Has checkmate ever been achieved by castling queenside in a high-level game?
This is to complement the kingside variant of that question
Has checkmate ever been achieved by a castling queen side in a high-level game?
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Has checkmate ever been achieved by castling kingside in a high-level game?
Has checkmate ever been achieved by castling kingside in a high-level game?
I asked an AI large language model, but it listed games which certainly didn't achieve checkmate with castling kingside. I ...
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Is there any sequence of premoves that guarantees checkmate in this particular King + Queen vs King endgame?
King + Queen vs. King is perhaps the most basic winning endgame and known to be mate in at most ten moves. However, I am wondering if there is any sequence of premoves that guarantees checkmate? For ...
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Most "heavy" model mate in a game
A model mate, to recall, is a mate where
a) any flight (including the standing place) of the enemy king is attacked exactly once;
b) no friendly piece (except king and pawns) idles around.
c) (...
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Why is this the wrong move?
I am new to chess. I am playing puzzles on chess.com. I made a move which I thought was checkmate, but it tells me I made the wrong move.
It looks to me like the King is in check by the bishop. But no ...
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Rook and promoted Bishop vs Rook endgame--forced win or draw?
I've recently been trying to learn the queen vs rook and rook and bishop vs rook endgames, and I've found it interesting how close the margin of victory vs draw is. I was thinking about whether the ...
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On a toroidal board, which pieces are needed to checkmate?
I saw this question On an infinite board, which pieces are needed to checkmate? and was inspired by it.
Many mating combinations won't suffice on a toroidal board.
For example, queen vs king will be a ...
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Minimal forced checkmate
A forced checkmate is a situation in which the player whose turn it is has only legal moves which put the other player in checkmate.
I’m searching for the minimal forced checkmate (the smallest amount ...
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How to checkmate with king + two knights vs king + pawn
King + two knights vs a king is a book draw, as the knights cannot get the enemy king into a checkmating position (only a stalemating position), because of the inherent clumsy nature of the knight. ...
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What is the required material to force a king move checkmate?
A fun thing to do is to try to achieve specific "achievements" (like these) in real games.
One such achievement is to checkmate with a king move. As the king itself obviously can't deliver ...
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How can I mate the black king in 4 moves or less (helpmate)
In this helpmate puzzle, it is White to move.
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Is there a position with the stupidest possible move?
I define a stupid move as a move that
puts the opponent in zugzwang so that all their moves result in mate in one (weaker version: a loss);
is chosen instead of a move that gives mate in one (weaker ...
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Number of checkmate positions
How many different checkmate positions are there? A Super-Computer problem. Not with any conditions or hypothetical situations, just simply the number of checkmates that can be arrived at in a ...
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Most different mate-in-N depending on black's move
The puzzle (this may have a known answer) is to construct a position such that:
If Black makes move A, it's mate in 1 for white.
If Black makes move B, it's mate in 2 for white.
...
If Black makes ...
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Why does Stockfish miss mate in 5 with only two legal moves?
I'm interested to understand what is going on for Stockfish on Lichess here. There are only two legal moves for Black, and it gives the position mate-in-14 for white.
When asked to play its ...
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I don't understand why this scenario is checkmate. The black rook cannot move, as it's protecting black king. Can someone explain? See photo [duplicate]
So in this scenario the White Queen put the black king in check, which was then blocked by the black rook. So, how is it that the black queen moving to the position of F1 is considered checkmate? The ...
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Testing Mate Possibility Without Use of King
I would like to be able to convince myself of the possibility (or lack thereof) of mate using various piece combinations in which the attacker doesn't use their own king.
I'd like to approach this by ...
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Why is this a Checkmate? Pawn can capture queen?
I am just learning Chess. Why is this a checkmate? It's Black's turn, and White's queen threatens Black's king, so check. But if I play gxf8, the check is gone. Why doesn't the game let me do it?
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Find a forced checkmate on dark squares only
In a recent Youtube video, the black player reaches the following position
[White "NN"]
[Black "Chess Simp"]
[FEN "r2r4/ppp2p1k/2n4P/4p3/P3n3/B1P1P2P/P1qPK2P/R6R b - - 0 1&...
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Shortest game to "elegant" mate
Define an "elegant" checkmate as one in which
the king is not on the edge of the board
the king and each of the 8 squares surrounding it are each attacked by exactly one, different opponent ...
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Puzzle: Forced game end in at most two halfmoves
Compose a position where
It's White to move
White can deliver checkmate or stalemate in 1 move
Or if they make a different move, then Black can deliver checkmate or stalemate in one 1 move
I needed ...
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How many moves to checkmate in the initial position with all Black pieces captured?
From the above position, black player lost (by mistakes) all of its pieces after his 15th move. How many more moves shall the black king have before it is checkmated by white if it is black' move?