Off the top of your head, what’s the difference between checkmate and stalemate?
A few years after I arrived in Japan, some friends and I were drinking in the bar and talking about all the things we could be doing that would be a more productive use of our time. Someone mentioned wanting to learn how to play chess. This prompted the rest of us to kind of side-eye each other and admit that we already knew how to play.
(This was before the current wave of independent games companies made board games cool again, and most of us had some variation on the experience of being made fun of for being a nerd and playing chess. So, we were not vocal about being able to play.)
Starbucks Coffee shops had also recently arrived in Japan and they brought chess tables with them. Most of the other patrons had no idea they were chess tables, but a checkerboard pattern with eight to a side is a chessboard by accident design. We spent a good six months beating each other at chess before the novelty wore off and people got bored. But, ever since, the few of us left in Japan will get together and start up again.
Doing so always ends up requiring a read-through and agreement on the rules. Chess, as you probably know, is an old, old game. Its history dates from the seventh or eighth centuries although Wikipedia states that its modern form was codified in the 18th. With a history that long and widespread, rules are susceptible to change. For example: castling - acceptable after the rook and / or the king have already moved once? According to the current set of ‘official’ rules, no. According to my fourth-grade history teacher? Sure.
And so back to checkmate and stalemate. Checkmate is the end state of the game. You have fought and reduced your opponent’s pieces and options to such a point that he or she can no longer move their king out of the current danger without placing it into another danger. The idea here is that rather than force your opponent to make the move that will lead to their king’s death, the game is called and you have won. We didn’t like that rule.
I distinctly remember, as a blood-thirsty nine-year-old, adding a rule with my friends wherein we had to deliver the coup de grace. Whoever was in checkmate had to choose which last move they wanted to make. The winner would then announce whatever horrible method of death we could conceive of that would fit the piece at hand. Even then we knew that it was different to die at the hand of a queen than at that of a pawn.
And, of course, our other favorite way to end a game was to enter into the death of a thousand cuts - your opponent is not in check but can’t make a move without entering check. So, you give them a pass. Maybe you’ll make a mistake. And you move one piece a little closer to putting the king in check. But just one. Now, you offer them something back - a pawn, perhaps? Just enough to get their hopes up before you move another piece into a deadly position…
Aside from the horrifyingly bloodthirsty games of cat-and-mouse that nine-year-olds can come up with, what you might have noticed is that, in the above description, an actual stalemate exists.
In pop culture these days, we tend to think of a stalemate as a standoff. No one can move, no one has an option to play. However, in chess, a stalemate is called when the king is not in check but cannot move (and no other pieces can be called in to rescue it), and, here’s the thing, that ends the game. In a draw. In other words, even if you’re losing, even if you’re down to your last piece, you can still force a draw by getting into a position from which you can’t escape before your opponent can corner you.
Something to think about.
Definition(s):
Checkmate
From Cambridge Dictionary:
a winning position in chess in which you have put the other player's king under a direct attack from which it cannot escape
a situation in which someone has been defeated or a plan cannot develop or continue
Stalemate
From Cambridge Dictionary:
a situation in which neither group involved in an argument can win or get an advantage and no action can be taken
in chess, a position in which one player is unable to move, but their king is not being attacked, which means that neither of the two players wins
Notable Events of 1886:
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Alternative Chess
There are hundreds and hundreds of variations on the game of chess. Some just have different rules, some have different (or more) boards, some even have different pieces. Here are three I want to try:
Empress Chess: A new piece with the combined movements of a rook and a knight is added to the board. Different variations also add a princess - knight and bishop - or change how big the board is.
3D Chess: If I understand its history right, this went from interesting background detail on Star Trek to actual game with printed rules via fan dedication and effort. Looks intriguing.
Jedi Chess: From Star Wars fandom rather than the movies, it replaces the normal movement of knights with a kind of miniature rook move. I think I want to try it more for the lore than the gameplay.
Next time: Easy come, easy go. That's it. Stay strong, stay curious. Learn something.