Questions tagged [stalemate]
A chess game is said to end in stalemate when the player to move has no legal move and his king is not in check.
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Why is stalemate a draw?
It is so difficult to force stalemate and sometimes unintentional too, so why is stalemate a draw?
As the opponent doesn't have a further move, why is it not considered a win?
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Examples of forced stalemate
The usual case one often sees specially in blitz play is when one side (usually the winning) mis-plays and then stalemate occurs with the losing side dodging a loss. But are there positions where ...
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Is it technically a checkmate if the king is not in check, but all moves will result in check?
In other words, after white's move, black king is not in check. It is now black's move, but any move that black could make results in check. Is this a checkmate? Is there a chess term for this ...
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Mutual Stalemate
You are required to find position such that:
1) Any move made by White or Black leads to stalemate for both sides immediately.
2) The position can be reached from the starting position of a chess ...
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Is it possible to have a double self-smothered stalemate?
I came up with this rather amusing and bizarre stalemate where Black stalemates itself by self-smothering.
[FEN "8/8/8/8/8/3p4/pp6/krb1K3 b - - 0 1"]
1...d2+?? 2. Kd1
The peculiar feature of ...
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Only the king remains, but he is stuck, can't move [duplicate]
I played with my friend yesterday, and we reached a point when I cornered him from everywhere. I had a queen and a king, and he had only his king left, but he could not do any move because any move ...
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What is the fastest way to reach stalemate?
It is known that the minimum number of moves required for checkmate is 2 moves (4 half moves) resulting in a victory for Black. However, what is the minimum number of moves required for stalemate? ...
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Stalemate situation with all pieces on the board
Suppose all the pieces are on the board. Does there exist a position such that
A) one of the players can't make any move (a stalemate)?
B) neither player can make any move (a double stalemate)?
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Can a King and a Knight force stalemate against a lone King?
I believe that a King and two Knights are able to force stalemate against a lone King (though obviously not checkmate)... but what about a King and one Knight against a lone King?
I first thought ...
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What's a good explanation for stalemate being a draw for a beginning chess player?
I've started playing chess a little more using an app on my phone, and frequently run into the situation where I'm dominating the computer opponent (on an easy difficulty level) to the point where he ...
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How different would chess be if a stalemate was a win? [duplicate]
Historically stalemate has been handled in different ways. I wonder how different chess would be if it was a win for the stalemating player.
Has enough thought been put into this so that it's ...
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During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, what was the rule for stalemate in France?
Wikipedia has a stalemate history section, but for France it only says:
The forfeiture of Black's turn to move (medieval France) (Murray 1913:464–66) (Davidson 1981:64–65), although other medieval ...
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Wrongly accepted stalemate but game is a clear win?
What will happen when we wrongly accepted stalemate and thereafter 02-03 seconds we noticed it was not a stalemate but a clear win?
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Situations of underpromoting the pawn
I recently came across a wonderful article on Chess.com about under promotion of pawns. One of the situations is here:
[FEN "8/8/1KP5/3r4/8/8/8/k7 w - - 0 1"]
[Date "1895.??.??"]
[White "Saavedra, ...
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Instead of giving checkmate, I gave stalemate. Why?
I am a beginner, and I have just discovered this annoying stalemate. I got the definition but while playing, I ended up with a stalemate and I don't know why. Could you explain it to me?
[FEN "8/...
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What is the fastest way to reach a position in which one side is forced to choose between checkmate and stalemate?
I had an interesting idea recently. While there are many proof games ending in checkmate or stalemate, why not both, I thought. So, thus I wondered, what is the fastest way to reach a position in ...
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