Check vs Checkmate
Today we will be taking about two very important aspects of chess: check and checkmate. Now, some of you know they are and want a review, while the rest have no idea what I am talking about, but all of you should have a good idea by the time you finish reading this.
Before I start telling you what a check or checkmate is, I am going to leave you with sample. I will not tell you whether it is a check or a checkmate until the end of the blog. As you are going through learning what the both are and looking at examples, I want you to decide whether the image below is a check or a checkmate.
Now that that is aside, let us start by learning about a check, we can go over checkmate later. So, what is a check? A check is where a piece is attacking the opposing king, but either the king can move away to safety, can block the attack, or can take the piece attacking. Now that you know what it is, let me show you some examples.
First, let us look at a simple example.
The white rook is attacking the black king. The black king has to move in order to get out of check. This give the black king 4 spots to move: c8, c7, e8, and e7. Some of you might be thinking that black can move to d7, but it can’t because if it does move there, it will still be attacked by the white rook.
Now let us look at another example that isn’t too hard.
Here, the white queen is attacking the black king. Black is forced to move their king to a place where the queen isn’t attacking. The only options would be c8 and e8 because e7 is blocked and the other spots are occupied by black pieces.
That was a lot like the first example. Let’s spice it up a little bit and go a little harder.
Before I explain this one, I want you to look it and think how can I protect the black king.
Now that you have thought about it for a second, let’s discuss. At first glance, you will notice that the black king is being attacked but it can’t move anywhere safe. That is true. The black king cannot move to a safe square, but you can do something else. You can move either the bishop or the night in the way of the rook to stop it from attacking the king. You can move the knight to f6 or you can move the bishop to f7. Both of these moves block the attack of the rook. This is a lot like Captain America. When he is being attacked by a strong attack, he puts his shield in the way in order to prevent the attack from hitting him. The shield is the one in harms way not him. The same way here. The knight or bishop will be attacked instead of the king.
Now that you learned about what a check is, how about we continue and learn what a checkmate is? A checkmate is where the king is being attacked, but has no place to move to avoid being attacked. That might sound confusing to some of you, but don’t worry. I have several examples for you below.
First, let’s look at a simple checkmate.
In this position, the black king cannot move anywhere that the queen isn’t attacking. The places that are available for the black king to move are d8, d7, f8, and f7, but the white queen is attacked these 4 squares. This is what a checkmate is. The black king is currently being attacked, but can’t get away because all the available squares are also being attacked.
Now, let’s go on for another example that is little more complicated.
Here the white rook is attacking the black queen. Although the black king has other pieces, they can’t get in the way of the rook to prevent the king from being attacked. The only available square for the king to move to is e7, but the white rook is attacking that square.
Let us take a look at one last checkmate.
In this position, the black king is trapped on the back rank, and is being attacked by the white rook. The black king has only two available places to move, but even if black plays either of these moves, the king will still be under attack.
Now, if you remember I asked you look at a picture at the start of the page. I have it below to make it easier on you to look at it. I want you to decide whether or not that is a check or a checkmate.
Now that you have looked at it again, some of you might be thinking that this is a check and others might be thinking that it is a checkmate, so what is it? It is a checkmate! Everyone who thought that should give themselves a pat on their back. For the ones that thought it is a check, don’t worry. This was a really hard question for a beginner.
So why is it a checkmate? If you look at, you notice that the white rook is attacking the black king. You also notice that there is a bishop for black to move in the way of the rook to prevent the king from being attacked, but is the king really not being attacked. If you look at the h8 square, you notice that there is a white queen, so if you move the black bishop to stop the white rook from attacking the black king, the white queen will start attacking the black king. So, no matter what black does, it can’t put its king in a place that it isn’t being attacked by a white piece making this a checkmate.
Wow that was a lot. Now that you know the difference between a check and a checkmate, you are one step closer to being able to being an amazing chess player.
Author: Bhavesh Kotta
