In the previous article we saw a number of ways in which a game of chess could end in a draw. One of the most comical ones however is the classical stalemate.
Stalemate occurs when one side’s king is not under check and that side has no legal moves to play. Few examples can be seen below.
Black’s king is not under check, but has no legal moves, so the game is a draw by stalemate.
Here Black even has a pawn, but still no legal moves, the game is a draw.
Stalemate is one of the most interesting rules in the game of chess. It can sometimes be overlooked over the board even by the top players in the world. One classical example is Bernstein vs Smyslov.
One common example is the following.
One recent example is from an online chess tournament, where a player had to suffer from a similar concept.
A very instructive yet comical example is the following one.
As we have seen, stalemate is one of the most comical elements of chess where one side could have his whole army in opposition to a lone king, but still the game could end in a draw. This tells us to be on our guard in winning positions and to never give up when we are behind 🙂