Stalemate

Commonly occurring in endgames, stalemates are a very important idea to understand, as a winning position may turn into a draw if one is not careful. So what is a stalemate? A stalemate is when your opponent, for example, cannot move any of their pieces, including the king, but you are also not attacking their king. When this occurs, no side wins; the game is a draw.

Let’s take a look at an example.

This position shows one of the most common stalemates that occur. If it is white’s move in this position, some may be tempted to play Qc7, trapping the king’s area even further. However, that would actually cause the black king to have no squares to move to (since all squares the king could have gone to are defended by the white queen). The black king is also not under attack. Since those two conditions are met, it would be a stalemate.

Let’s take a look at another example.

This position highlights another common example of a stalemate. Especially for beginners, it feels almost instinctive to promote all their pieces into queens and try to retain all their pieces on the chessboard. However, one must be extremely cautious in the endgame if many pieces are present. For instance, in this position, white may be tempted to promote his pawn on g7 to a queen. If that is done, though, the position will turn into a stalemate. Let’s check our two conditions

• Black has no legal squares that they can move to ✓

• Black’s king is not under attack ✓

Since our two conditions are met, this position is a stalemate if white promotes.

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Author: Saharsh Satheesh