Stalemate Question
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I hope I have the right position ... please notice that in the diagram, with Black to move, he has no legal moves. A player cannot be compelled to play an illegal move, therefore the game is drawn by way of stalemate. The machine's verdict was correct.
Yeah the positions are correct. So then what is the difference between a stalemate and a checkmate? I thought the point is to make it impossible for the king to move away from a check.
The difference is that in check mate the king is in check and has no escape.... stalemate the king has no escape mbut is NOT in check :-)
In the diagram if its blacks move he has no legal move and is not in check so its a stalemate/draw. If its whites move its mate in 1 .
In that position there is no white piece attacking the black king so it is not in check. If there is no check, there is no checkmate. The black king cannot move into check so it has no legal moves, which is a stalemate.
Too many pieces can sometimes gum up the works. In a position like that it might be easier to keep the bishop and knight out of the way and just use the queen and rook. Imagine the bishop and knight were not even on the board. White could easily checkmate by moving the queen directly beside the black king. In this position that would be g6. Or white could move either the queen or the rook to the h file and also checkmate black.
Oh, okay. Now I see. Appreciate the help. I was completely unaware of the difference.
Oct 9, 2009
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#8
I see people explain this over and over by saying that the difference is that the king is/is not in check. This is not correct. In the following diagram, the black king has no legal moves. Yet this is not a stalemate. Black has a legal move with the pawn. Don't think of stalemate as an issue of the king having no move. Think of it instead as the player has no move. That's the reason for the rule in the first place. Otherwise, it's the black player's turn to move, but he can't. Yet the game isn't over, since there is no checkmate. So the black player would have to sit there until the end of time, unable to move, but unable to make it the White player's turn.
Make sense?
I was playing Chess Titans this morning and thought I had the match won but the computer said it was a stalemate. I was playing white. Here's the notation of my pieces (if I do this wrong please correct me, I've never written notation):
I had Qg8, Bg6, and Rg2, with nh8. The black king was at kh6. The computer said this was a stalemate, but I don't understand why. Any help figuring this out would be greatly appreciated.
I'm just learning to play and was excited I had him pinned to the side of the board. It was frustrating to see it called a stalemate.