How to Checkmate with King and Rook

After checkmate with king and queen, the next ending to learn is king and rook against a lone king. It comes up often: after the queens have been traded, or before you have promoted a pawn.

According to the English Wikipedia article on Checkmate, with the side holding the rook to move, mate can be forced in at most sixteen moves from any position. With a queen it is at most ten, so the rook takes a little longer. In this post I go through the method in stages. The example position and line were checked with a program: every move is legal and the line ends in mate.

How it differs from the queen

A rook moves only along ranks and files. It cannot cover diagonal escape squares the way a queen does, so every time you push the enemy king back, you need help from your own king.

With the queen, the queen shrank the box on its own and the king only came in at the end. With the rook, the rook draws a line, your king steps up, and only when the two work together can you push the enemy king back one rank. That takes more moves. On the other hand, there is really only one pattern to remember.

1. Draw a line with the rook

Here is the example.

Position 1: White king on e1, white rook on h4. Black king on d5. Black to move.

The rook controls the fourth rank, so the black king cannot cross it. It is confined to ranks 5 to 8. Holding this line while taking away one rank at a time is the whole ending.

The black king can go to c5, e5, c6, d6 or e6. The rook is on the h-file, far from the black king, so it is in no danger.

2. Bring your king up

Once the line is in place, leave the rook where it is and walk your king forward.

• Black Ke5, White Ke2
• Black Kd5, White Kd3

White’s king is now just below the rook’s line. From here on, you play by looking at how the two kings stand.

3. When the kings face each other, check

The one pattern is this. When the two kings stand on the same file with one square between them, and it is White’s move, give check with the rook on the black king’s rank.

Say the white king is on e4 and the black king on e6. If the rook moves to the sixth rank with check, the black king cannot stay on that rank. It cannot step forward either, because d5, e5 and f5 are covered by the white king. It has to go back to the seventh rank. The line has moved up by one.

Kings facing each other like this is called the opposition. It matters a great deal in king and pawn endings too, but here it is enough to remember “kings facing, give check”.

4. When they don’t face each other, wait with the rook

Of course, Black will not walk into the opposition on purpose. When your king arrives in front, the black king steps aside. In the line above, when the white king reached d3, Black stepped from d5 to e5.

Now the two kings are a knight’s move apart: d3 to e5 is the same shape as a knight jump. When you see this, move the rook one step along the same rank, to a square far from the black king. The line stays, and you simply hand the move back to Black.

• Black Ke5, White Ra4

Black has to move something. If the king goes back to d5, the kings face each other and Ra5+ pushes it back. If it goes sideways to f5, White plays Ke3 and follows it again from a knight’s move away. In this line, Black chose to retreat to the sixth rank.

• Black Ke6, White Ra5

When the black king retreats on its own, move the rook up one rank to tighten the line. The black king is now shut in on ranks 6 to 8. After that it is the same thing again.

• Black Kd6, White Kd4
• Black Ke6, White Rb5 (a knight’s move apart, so wait)
• Black Kf6, White Ke4
• Black Ke6, White Rb6+ (the kings face each other, so check)

The black king has to go back to d7, e7 or f7.

5. If the rook is attacked, move it far away

This is the most common mistake in this ending: losing the rook. If the rook is taken, only the two kings are left, neither side can mate, and the game is a draw.

• Black Kd7, White Ke5
• Black Kc7

The black king on c7 is right next to the rook on b6. The rook is unprotected, so if you ignore it, it will be taken. Move it to the far end of the same rank, h6. The line on the sixth rank stays.

• White Rh6

If you make it a rule to keep the rook on the side away from the black king, you will avoid almost all of these accidents. When you tighten the line, avoid squares next to the black king as well.

The line continues.

• Black Kd7, White Rg6 (a knight’s move apart, so wait)
• Black Kc7, White Kd5
• Black Kd7, White Rg7+ (the kings face each other, so check)

The black king has been driven to the eighth rank.

6. Mate on the edge

• Black Ke8, White Ke6
• Black Kd8, White Rh7 (a knight’s move apart, so wait)

If Black now plays Ke8 and faces the white king, Rh8 is mate. Black avoids that and heads for the corner.

• Black Kc8, White Kd6
• Black Kb8, White Kc6
• Black Ka8, White Kb6

Near the corner, the black king runs out of squares to step aside to. On a8 its only move is to b8.

• Black Kb8, White Rh8

That is mate. The rook on h8 controls the eighth rank, so the king cannot go to a8 or c8, and the white king on b6 covers a7, b7 and c7. The final picture is the black king on the edge, the white king facing it, and the rook closing the edge rank.

From Position 1, White needed 19 moves. With best play White could mate in 14, so this is not the shortest route. Even so, this fixed routine suits beginners: “kings facing, give check; otherwise, wait one move.” Every decision becomes a choice between two things, so you are less likely to wander back and forth.

Watch out for stalemate

It happens less often than with the queen, but stalemate is possible with the rook too. Partway through the line above, with the black king on a8, the white king on c6 and the rook on h7, suppose White plays the rook to b7. The rook on b7 is protected by the white king and cannot be taken, and the rook covers a7 and b8. Black has no legal move and is not in check, so it is a draw.

In the last few moves there is no need to bring the rook close to the black king. Let the rook draw its line from a distance and leave the finish to your king. That keeps you safe. I collected stalemate patterns in the stalemate post.

The fifty-move rule

Under the FIDE Laws of Chess, if fifty moves by each side pass with no pawn move and no capture, a draw can be claimed. With best play the mate takes at most sixteen moves, and the routine above takes about twenty, so if you follow the method you do not need to worry. If you keep giving random checks and circling around, though, that limit starts to come closer.

How to practise

As with the king and queen, this ending is easy to practise alone. Put a white king and rook and a black king on the board, play Black’s moves yourself too, and continue until mate. Choose Black’s moves so that the king stays near the centre and avoids facing the white king. That makes good practice.

Once you are comfortable, count how many moves you needed. If you can finish in about twenty moves every time, you should have no trouble in a real game.

Daily mate practice

Chess365 is a checkmate puzzle app with 1,000 puzzles each of mate in 2, 3, 4 and 5. You always play White, you can make any legal move, and Black answers with the most stubborn defence. Many solutions are quiet moves that are not checks, like the waiting rook moves in this post. You can play a move that stalemates Black, but that line counts as a failure and the app shows its own explanation.

How mate puzzles differ from tsume shogi is in Tsume shogi vs chess mate puzzles, the ways to meet a check are in Check vs checkmate, and how to use the app is in Getting Started with Chess365.