Checkmates
How to Checkmate with King and Queen
King and queen against a lone king is the first checkmate every player should be able to deliver without thinking. It comes up constantly: a pawn promotes, the opponent plays on, and suddenly you have to prove the win before the clock or the 50-move rule takes it away. The good news is that the method is short, mechanical and safe once you know the two dangers: chasing the king with random checks, and stalemating it at the last moment.
Why checks alone do not work
A queen can check a king from almost anywhere, so beginners tend to give check after check. The problem is that each check gives the defending king a free move, and it usually runs back toward the center. Checkmate with king and queen only happens on the edge of the board, and it always needs your own king to help. So the plan is not "check" but "restrict": take squares away from the enemy king until it is stuck on the edge, then bring your king up and mate.
From any starting position with king and queen against king, perfect play mates in at most ten moves. You will not always find the fastest route over the board, and you do not need to. A clear method that finishes in fifteen or twenty moves is far more valuable than a brilliant one you might botch.
Step 1: Build the box
Place your queen so that it cuts the defending king off along a rank and a file at the same time. The king is then trapped inside a rectangle, or "box", and it can never leave it. Each time the king steps toward a side of the box, you move the queen to make the box smaller.
A neat way to do this is the knight's-move trick: put your queen a knight's jump away from the enemy king. From that square the queen covers the rank and the file next to the king, and the king cannot attack the queen. Then, whenever the king moves, you move the queen so that it is again a knight's jump away, mirroring it toward the edge.
In the diagram, White starts with 1.Qe3. The queen now guards the whole e-file and the third rank, plus the d4 square on the diagonal. The black king on d5 is boxed into the area a4-d8 and its best try is 1...Kc6. White answers 2.Qd4, a knight's jump from c6, shrinking the box to the a-c files and the fifth to eighth ranks. After 2...Kb7 3.Qc5 the king is confined to the a-file and b8, and after 3...Ka6 4.Qb4 it has only a7. After 4...Ka7 5.Qb5 the black king can only shuttle between a7 and a8.
Notice what White has not done: there has not been a single check. Every queen move took squares away, and the white king has not moved yet. That is fine, because the box is now as small as it can get.
Step 2: Bring the king
Once the defending king is pinned to the edge (or, here, to two squares in the corner), stop moving the queen. Walk your own king toward the action. In our example the black king can only go a8-a7-a8, so White simply marches: 5...Ka8 6.Kd2 Ka7 7.Kc3 Ka8 8.Kc4 Ka7 9.Kc5 Ka8 10.Kc6 Ka7 11.Qb7#.
The white king must come close enough to protect the queen on the mating square. A queen next to the enemy king without protection can simply be captured, so the mate is always a team effort.
Play through the full king and queen mate →Step 3: Watch for stalemate
The only way to throw this ending away is stalemate: the defending side has no legal move and is not in check, so the game is drawn. It happens most often when the queen shrinks the box one time too many, leaving the king with zero squares instead of one or two.
Look at our line after 5...Ka8. If White plays 6.Qb6??, intending to "tighten" the box, Black has no move at all: a7, b7 and b8 are all covered, and the king is not in check. The game is a draw. The same thing happens with the queen on c7 against a king on a8. Both positions look like progress, which is exactly why they are dangerous.
Two habits prevent this:
- Once the king is on the edge, leave it at least two squares. In the example, the king shuttled between a7 and a8. That gives it a legal move every turn while your king walks over.
- Before every queen move near the corner, count the defender's replies. If the answer is zero and you are not giving check, do not play the move.
There is a second, quieter trap. Players sometimes move their king next to the queen to "protect" it and accidentally take away the defender's last square that way. The question to ask is always the same: after my move, does the other king have a legal move, or is it in check?
The final mating patterns
Every king and queen mate is one of a few shapes. Knowing them lets you aim at a target instead of improvising.
- Queen in front, king behind it. The queen stands right next to the enemy king, protected by your king. In the diagram, the queen on b7 touches the king on a7, and the king on c6 guards it. This is the most common finish.
- Queen on the edge, kings facing. With kings on e6 and e8 (the white king directly in front of the black one), a queen check along the back rank, such as Qa8#, mates because your king covers d7, e7 and f7.
- Queen in the king's face. With the same kings on e6 and e8, Qe7# is also mate: the queen is protected by the king and controls the entire back rank around the defender.
Notice that in each case your king stands two squares from the enemy king, usually directly opposite it or a knight's jump away. That is the picture to aim for while you bring the king over.
Common mistakes
- Checking instead of restricting. A check that lets the king step toward the center usually undoes your work.
- Leaving the queen next to the king without protection. Always check whether the defender can just take it.
- Forgetting the clock. In a blitz game, a simple method you can play at speed beats a precise one you have to calculate. The box method needs almost no calculation.
- Ignoring the 50-move rule. You have fifty moves from the last capture or pawn move. With this method you will mate long before that, but aimless checking can run the count down.
How to practise this
Set up a lone king in the middle of an empty board and give yourself a king and queen on the first rank. Play it against the computer on the play page or set it up on the analysis board and play both sides. Repeat until you can mate in under twenty moves without a single stalemate scare, then try it with ten seconds a move. Once this feels automatic, move on to the harder king and rook checkmate, and read avoiding stalemate for more traps of the same kind. You can find other finishing patterns on the checkmate patterns page.
- Box the king first; do not chase it with checks.
- Use the knight's-move distance to shrink the box safely.
- When the king is on the edge, stop moving the queen and bring your king.
- Before every move near the corner, make sure the defender still has a legal move.