User Guide

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Check, mate, and stalemate

Check

When the king of a player can be taken by a piece of the opponent, one says that the king is in

check. For instance, the white player moves his rook to a position such that it attacks the black

king, i.e., if black doesn’t do anything about it, the rook could take the black king in the next move:

we say that the white rook gives check. It is considered good manners to say check when one

checks ones opponent.

It is not allowed to make a move, such that ones king is in check after the move. If a player acci-

dently tries to make such a move, he must take the move back and make another move (following

the rules that one must move with the piece one has touched.)

Mate

When a player is in check, and he cannot make a move such that after the move, the king is not in

check, then he is mated. The player that is mated lost the game, and the player that mated him

won the game.

Note that there are three different possible ways to remove a check:

Move the king away to a square where he is not in check.

Take the piece that gives the check.

(In case of a check, given by a rook, bishop or queen: ) move a piece between the checking

piece and the king.

Stalemate

When a player cannot make any legal move, but he is not in check, then the player is said to be

stalemated. In a case of a stalemate, the game is a draw.

Castling

Under certain, special rules, a king and rook can move simultaneously in a castling move.

The following conditions must be met:

· The king that makes the castling move has not yet moved in the game.

· The rook that makes the castling move has not yet moved in the game.

· The king is not in check.

· The king does not move over a square that is attacked by an enemy piece during the cas-

tling move, i.e., when castling, there may not be an enemy piece that can move (in case of

pawns: by diagonal movement) to a square that is moved over by the king.

· The king does not move to a square that is attacked by an enemy piece during the castling

move, i.e., you may not castle and end the move with the king in check.

· All squares between the rook and king before the castling move are empty.

· The King and rook must occupy the same rank (or row).

When castling, the king moves two squares towards the rook, and the rook moves over the king to

the next square, i.e., white’s king on e1 and rook on a1 move to: king c1, rook d1 (long castling),

white’s king on e1 and rook on h1 move to: king g1, rook f1 (short castling), and similar for black.