Rook @ king v king

I'm in a game above. Opponent refuses a draw. He has the rook can he actually win? I don't think so. Does chess.com work on the 50 move without taking a piece rule ?

King + Rook vs King is a win. You can only hope that he doesn't know how (which is insane). So resign.

Every FIDE rule that can be applied to the online chess format is used by chess.com. So if you miraculously keep him from checkmating you in 50, you can claim the draw.

you blew a K+R vs K!?!??!?? god, kill yourself, lol jk. K+R is easier to master than Qvs Knight, which is to say, pathetically easy.

force the enemy king to the back rank, put your rook on the 7th then your king on the 6th, follow the enemy king to the corner and when the kings are facing put the rook on the 8th rank - the same process for every rank to force the enemy king to move backwards.

That said, this entire thread has been really depressing.

lol seriously dalephilly; unless there is some connection you have with either of those members, there is probably something wrong with you if seeing a random game get blown literally keeps you from sleeping at night. So yeah, most likely you're just being pretentious.

Anyway, I remember when I was young and I had so much trouble with this mate, no idea why. Once you know the pattern of forcing the king back a rank with a lateral check when both kings are parallel, until the king is on the back rank, when it has nowhere to escape to and is thus in checkmate, you can soon do it in your sleep. In this process if you constantly keep the king cut off by a rank, it can never move down to escape.

The process of getting the king parallel to yours is as follows: firstly, make sure the king is cut off by a rank so it can't move down. Since the weaker side will obviously try to run away from your king, you can kind of chase him around. To avoid facing your king, he'll keep having to move in one horizontal direction, but eventually he will either have to move opposite the direction he came from (hopefully running into your king), or move back, which is the point of facing the king anyway: to gradually force him back. You may however need to play a move to maintain the position - like moving the rook along a rank for example - to force his king to run into yours. Remember, you don't want to face his king with your move - since he'll just move away - you want him to move into yours and then immediately check him and force him back. Just continue this linear, straightforward process and the win is very easy.

It's often not always the fastest way to mate, but knowing this way is an easy way to make sure you can always win this position. If you want to show off later to people who would care to see a fast rook mate, by all means calculate out  "the best way", but it's easiest to learn the basic methods first.

I never think in "boxes" when I mate with rook+king vs. king, but in lines. As in, I take away one line after another until the opposing king is nailed to the side of the board. Like so.

Being unable to mate with Rook+King vs. King is sad, because it hints that the person in question was poorly taught. The basic checkmates should be part of the first chess training lesson, just after teaching the moves. It's sad to see people having missed that lesson through negligence of their teacher (or their own inattentiveness) and squandering their hard-earned wins that way. It's unfair for people to run away with a draw just for that reason. Depressing then if the people they face, like in the OP, see themselves "proven right", possible perpetuating their ignorance for all eternity.

I'm no sure what that has to do with elitism. The sentiment behind it is that we want the guy who played better to get the win he deserved, and for all who learn chess to learn as well as they can (the OP could have learned a valuable lesson, but didn't). Is "The person who played better should win" a form of elitism?

(Also: It's "kindergarten", and I presume neither chessguyuk nor his opponent are anywhere near kindergarten age, making that analogy just about as bad as analogies can be.)

Not everyone wants to be taught chess like they're in school...

Now if a GM didn't know that, then yeah, it'd be a shame he'd be that poorly taught and everything. But these guys are just regular people; they should be able to play and learn any way they want.

Of course. Still sad, though.

For the record, I'm the one who found it depressing first.