What is the difference between checkmate and stalemate in chess

Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance.

Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. In This Article Expand. Featured Video. Read More. Your Privacy Rights. You have challenged the king and there is a chance for the king to move to another space. You have to warn the opponent by saying check. This is the sign that the king needs to be moved to a safe spot.

This is wrong, as your opponent needs to be warned about the impeding danger. The opponent must then move his or her king to safety. On the other hand, a checkmate is one where the game is over. No matter where the king is moved, he is always in danger. This signifies the end of the game. The white bishop is threatening to capture the Black king as indicated with the green arrow.

Black can easily defend the attack by moving his Knight to the d7 square as indicated with the red arrow. The White Queen is threatening to capture the Black King. Unfortunately the Black King has no legal squares to escape the threat nor pieces to defend it. Chess is a riveting but a complicated game. With lots of practice, one can learn some very interesting and effective strategies like the Ruy Lopez and the Sicilian defense, but it also has a steep learning curve for beginners so it is important to prepare for failure and figure out ways to put the game into a drawn state when ones sees the possibility of losing.

So whenever a stalemate happens first of all if you are novice then it just shocks you! Even if you are an intermediate chess player, you might have at least once thought this especially if you were winning the game that stalemate was very unfair, right?

But you have to accept this rule because it is same for every player. It maintains the balance in the game. And How To Stop It! Hope you enjoyed reading this article. Please do share if this helped you. First of all we compared stalemate and checkmate. Then we understood about them in brief. We also studied both with respective examples and situation and finally we talked if stalemate was better or checkmate.

Below I have listed down some of the frequently asked questions for you. You can check them out, some might clear your doubt as well. You might be having no legal moves left to continue the game and your king is not in check. This fulfills the criteria of stalemate and not checkmate, so you might be in a stalemate condition. No, stalemate and checkmate both are different things.

Yes, it is good to put yourself into a stalemate to avoid a checkmate because by stalemate you will get at least half points since the game is drawn in a stalemate.

While by getting checkmated you will lose the game and earn zero points. I know the actual problems that chess players face. I created this site to make chess easy to understand for newcomers, and also to help players of all levels of ability to improve their chess-playing skills. Read more about me here.