Stalemate in chess, and every other way a game ends in a draw
Stalemate is when the player to move has no legal move and is not in check. The game stops there and it is a draw, half a point each, whoever was winning a second earlier. It costs beginners more won games than any other rule, and it nearly always happens with a queen on the board.
What is a stalemate in chess?
Two things have to be true at the same moment. The player whose turn it is is not in check, and that player has no legal move with any piece. Not no good move: no move at all. Every king step would walk into an attack, the pawns are blocked, and anything else is already off the board.
You cannot pass in chess. If you have a move you must play it, and if you have none the game ends there. That rule is the only reason stalemate exists.
Is stalemate a win?
No. Stalemate is a draw, worth half a point to each player. It makes no difference that one side had a queen and a rook and the other had a bare king. The result is the same as if the two of you had shaken hands on move ten.
That is what separates it from checkmate. Both leave the player to move with no legal move. In checkmate the king is under attack as well and the game is lost; in stalemate the king is safe and the game is tied. One square is often the whole difference between them, and both have their own boards on check and checkmate.
How beginners stalemate with a queen
It goes the same way nearly every time. One player is a queen up, the other is down to a lone king, and the queen drives that king to the edge of the board. A queen covers so many squares at once that she can take the king's last square by accident, and if the king is not in check at that moment, the game is drawn.
The move that does it is usually a quiet one. The queen steps to a square a rank or a diagonal away from the king, it looks like the net closing, and the net closes on nothing.
Two habits stop it. Before any quiet queen move, ask whether the enemy king still has a square to go to. If it does not, that move has to be check, or it should not be played. And bring your own king up the board: king and queen together mate in a few moves, while a queen on her own can push a king to the edge and then has nothing to finish with. If you are not used to using the king as an attacking piece, its moves are on how the king moves.
What counts as a draw in chess?
Six things. Two of them the players choose, the rest happen whether anyone wants them or not.
Agreement. One player offers a draw, the other accepts, and the game is over. Most short draws between friends are this one.
Stalemate. The player to move is not in check and has no legal move. Nobody has to claim it or even notice it. The game is simply over.
Threefold repetition. The same position appears three times with the same player to move, and the game can be drawn. The three do not have to be one after another, and the position includes whose turn it is, which sides can still castle and whether an en passant capture is on. In practice it shows up as perpetual check: a losing player finds a king they can check forever and keeps checking.
The fifty-move rule. Fifty moves by each player, a hundred moves in all, with no capture and no pawn moved, and the game is a draw. A capture or any pawn move puts the count back to zero. The rule is there so a player who cannot make progress cannot shuffle pieces around forever hoping the other one gets bored.
Insufficient material. Neither side has enough left to deliver checkmate at all, so the game is drawn the moment it happens. King against king, king and one bishop against king, king and one knight against king. Two knights cannot force mate either, although a player can still walk into it, so that case is not drawn automatically.
Dead position. The wider version of the rule above: no series of legal moves, however bad, could ever produce checkmate for either side. The usual example is a board of locked pawn chains that neither king can get behind. Games like that are agreed drawn rather than called by a computer.
How draws work on this site
Every board here reads the position after each move. Stalemate, threefold repetition, fifty moves without a capture or a pawn move, and insufficient material are all caught for you, and the game stops with the reason written on screen, so nobody has to spot it or claim it. In online play there is an Offer draw button for the agreement case. Playing 2 player chess offline on one device, you can just say the word and start again. The rest of the rules are on the rules of chess.
Frequently asked questions
Is stalemate a win in chess?
No. It is a draw, half a point each, no matter how far ahead one side is. A stalemate with a queen and two rooks on the board scores the same as one with two bare kings.
Is stalemate a draw or a loss?
A draw, for both players. It is not a loss for the player with no move and not a win for the player who caused it, though the side that was winning tends to feel it as a loss.
What is the difference between stalemate and checkmate?
Check. In both, the player to move has no legal move. In checkmate the king is under attack as well, and that side loses. In stalemate the king is not under attack, and the game is drawn.
Can you win with only a king?
No. A lone king can never give checkmate, so the best it can do is draw. The same goes for a king with only one bishop, or only one knight.
How many moves until a chess game is a draw?
Fifty by each player with no capture and no pawn move. Any capture or pawn move sets the counter back to zero, so an ordinary game never gets near it.
Can you draw by repeating moves?
Yes. If the same position occurs three times with the same player to move, the game can be drawn. It is how a losing player saves a game with endless checks.
What happens if both players only have kings?
The game is an immediate draw. Neither king can put the other in check, so checkmate is impossible and there is nothing left to play for.
Now play it
Play 2 player chess offline on one device or play chess online with a friend.