Welcome back to another blog!
You played an amazing game of chess but could not convert that amazingness into a win only because you didn’t exactly know to checkmate with your queen and king. How many times has this happened to you, where you have your royal pair and your opponent is left only with his king on the board, but you could only draw the game. I am pretty sure it happened to you more than once. I have faced it several times. I sometimes got confused about how to checkmate the enemy king in the early days of chess. Either it led to a stalemate or it took an eternity to “find” the checkmate and finish the game. But don’t you worry! You are going to learn just that today!
You can checkmate your opponent using your royal pair by following a few simple steps.
- Maintain a Knight-Distance to the Enemy King
- Follow the King
- Bring Your King to the Party and Checkmate
Maintain a Knight-Distance to the Enemy King
The first simple step is to put your queen just a knight distance away from the enemy king. You may ask why. Because it limits the opponent king’s escape squares. It then becomes easier to bring the king to the corner of the board. Remember, bringing the enemy king to the edge or corner of the board is very important to deliver checkmate. Follow the position below.
Black can place the queen either to d4 or c5, or even to c7. All of these moves work perfectly. As these three moves keep the attacking queen right a knight-move away from the rival king.
Let’s assume the queen moved to c5. Notice that the white king is absolutely restricted in an almost box shaped area. The defending king is now forced to travel to the edge of the board, which makes our goal happen a lot easier.
Follow the King (Literally)
The next step is even simpler than the first one. You just have to copy whatever direction the white king goes. Just follow and move with him. You don’t even need to think! Let’s continue the previous position.
White king moved to f7. What do we do? We go to the d6 square, following the direction the white king went to. You can see that the queen is placed just a knight-move one more time.
The white king goes to e8, so we go to c7 following him. White plays kf8, we play qd7. Then kg8, qe7. It continues as white went to the corner of the board, aka the h8 square.
According to the previous discussion we now play qf8, right? Whoops! It will result in a stalemate, as the defending king has no legal move to play. And we do not want that in such position. You need to stop copying the enemy king’s moving direction once it reaches the corner of the board.
Bring Your King to the Party
Time to wake up your king. You cannot just sit and watch your queen do all the work. Help your queen! Jokes apart, an active king is extremely important in endgames. Activate your king and bring it closer the opposing one to deliver a clinical checkmate!
Keeping the black queen on e7 leaves the white king with only one square. So, he cannot move anywhere except back and forth between g8 and h8 square. The attacking king, in the meantime, travels close to the white king and stays on g6. That leaves us with the following position.
It is black to play, and queen to g7 is game over for white.
Alternate Way
You can overcome the defending king with you queen and king in some more ways. Let me show you another way of doing the exact same checkmate. Let’s continue from the very first position you saw in the page earlier.
Make a Box
The primary goal when checkmating a lone king is always to bring him to any of the four edges or the corners of the board. It makes the task a lot more effortless. In order to the achieve that, you must, as I mentioned earlier, limit the opposite king’s escaping options. In the above position, the white king’s escape is already somewhat limited.
It is already in the red-marked box. White king cannot pass the box. We just have to make sure that this box gets smaller with every move you play. The defending king will be then forced to move towards a corner. So, What move are you thinking of that makes the box smaller? If you are thinking of qc5, you are absolutely correct! If you planned to play your queen to d4, that is great as well. Both the moves fulfill our goals. I’ll choose the c5 square.
It is white to move, white has no option left but to go backwards. Let’s suppose white plays king to d7. What would you do now?
Bring Your King Closer
This is pretty similar to the first approach we learned. The only difference is, you trapped the white king first in the previous technique. In this approach, you will bring your king to support your queen, making the box even smaller and eventually delivering checkmate. We bring our king to the e4 square.
The white king has three options to play, e4, d8, and e8. Two of them lead to the back rank, which will help checkmating him more quickly. Ke4 is the only option for white to survive a few more moves in the game.
Can you guess the move for black now? It’s qd6+! This leaves the white king with only two moves to play.
White king is slowly but surely going to exactly where we want it to be, the corner! You get the idea by now. Just repeat the process –
- Limit the Defending King’s Escapes
- Bring Your King to Help Your Queen.
Now you know how you can achieve victory instead of an accidental stalemate in such situations. Apply it in your game, grow some confidence, AND You’re Welcome!
Ihfuwhdjiwdjwijdiwfhewguhejiw fwdiwjiwjfiwhf fjwsjfwefeigiefjie fwifjeifiegjiejijfehf https://uuueiweudwhfuejiiwhdgwuiwjwfjhewugfwyefhqwifgyewgfyuehgfuwfuhew.com
m8fkyi