You have to know some of the checkmates in order to know what you are looking for when playing a chess game. Some of these basic checkmates even have a name. By studying this kind of diagrams you may be able to avoid or to make use of similar positions during your own games.
If the player whose turn it is has no legal moves the game has to end. If this player is not in check it is called stalemate. Stalemate ends the game and the result is a draw, even when one of the players has a big material advantage.
The following two diagrams are stalemates.
So you have [...]
In the previous lessons we have learned how to attack and defend pieces. But the other player will also defend the pieces you are attacking. If an exchange doesn’t give you any advantage you may be able to attack the piece once more.
As an example in the diagram on the left white is able to [...]
Now that you know how to move the pieces and to capture the free pieces your opponent is offering it is time to spend some time on a lesson about how to deal with an attacked piece.
If one of your pieces is attacked you have to know how the piece can be defended. There are [...]
In almost all chess games one of the players wins by first obtaining a material advantage. The easiest way to obtain such a material advantage is to take the free pieces offered by the other player.
One way to localize these pieces is to look at each of your own pieces to see whether one of [...]