Basic checkmate patterns every player must know

Strong players do not work checkmate out square by square. They recognise a shape they have seen a hundred times before, and that takes about a second.

Checkmate means the king is attacked and cannot get out of it. To escape a check a player has three choices. Move the king to a safe square. Block the attack with another piece. Or capture the attacking piece.

A checkmate pattern is a shape that takes all three choices away at once. The same shapes come back in game after game. There are only a handful you really need, and this page shows five of them.

A castled king often sits behind three pawns of its own. Those pawns keep the king safe from checks in front. They also take away the king's escape squares.

A rook or a queen that reaches the back row then gives check along the whole row. The king cannot step forward because its own pawns are in the way. That is the back-rank mate.

The fix is one small pawn move earlier in the game. Push one pawn in front of the king so the king has a hole to step into.

Two rooks and nothing else can mate a lone king. One rook holds a row so the king cannot come back. The other rook checks on the next row and pushes the king one step further.

Then the rooks swap jobs and do it again, like walking up a ladder. The king runs out of board at the edge and the last check is mate.

This is the easiest mate in chess to learn, and it teaches the idea behind every other one: take squares away, then check.

A queen is strong but she cannot mate a lone king by herself. Every mate with a queen needs the king to cover squares next to the enemy king.

The method is called the box. You use the queen to draw a smaller and smaller box around the enemy king. Then you walk your own king up. Then you give the last check.

Be careful near the edge. If the enemy king has no move and is not in check, the game is a draw by stalemate.

A rook and a king can also force mate, but it takes longer than a queen. The rook draws a line the enemy king cannot cross. Your king then walks up and stands two squares in front of the enemy king.

When the two kings face each other with one empty square between them, they are in opposition. From there the rook gives check and the enemy king is forced backwards one row.

Repeat until the enemy king is on the edge. The check on the edge is checkmate.

Sometimes a king is trapped by its own army. Every square around it holds one of its own pieces. A knight can then jump in and give a check that nothing can answer.

The knight is the only piece that can do this, because a knight jumps over everything in its way. Nothing can block a knight check, so the only answers are moving the king or taking the knight.

It is the rarest of the five patterns on this page, and it is the one players remember for years after they first play it.

Learn them in this order:

• Two rooks, the ladder mate. It works from any position and needs no thinking.
• Queen and king. Almost every game that ends in a promoted queen finishes this way.
• Rook and king. This one turns up in real endgames all the time.
• Back-rank mate. This is the one that wins and loses club games.
• Smothered mate. Rarer, but you will never forget it once you have played it.

Two bishops and the bishop with knight come last. They are hard, and they are rare.

Learners rush the last few moves and give stalemate instead of checkmate. Stalemate means the player to move has no legal move and is not in check. The game is an immediate draw.

The usual cause is a queen that lands too close to a king that is already stuck on the edge. A whole won game becomes half a point.

Two habits stop it. Before every quiet move, ask whether the enemy king still has a square. And when you are winning by a lot, keep an extra rook or pawn rather than trading down to one piece.