Chess Endgames for Kids (Part II)
In the first part of this series, we discussed the importance of the endgame, as well as some basic chess endgame strategies developing chess players should learn.
Chess endgames are a crucial part of chess strategy that often need to be studied more. Much of the endgame is about getting your pawns to the other side and hopefully ending up with at least one queen, if not more. Just remember to avoid making too many–if more than three queens are on the board at once, it’s easy to end up in a stalemate.
But having a queen or rook is useless if you don’t know how to checkmate with one. Here, we will discuss two basic endgame checkmates you can do once you have a lot more points than your opponent.
The Ladder Checkmate: Simple, Effective, Deadly
The ladder checkmate is the first checkmate any new chess player learns and is probably the most common checkmate. It uses two pieces that can travel in a straight line–two rooks, two queens, or a rook and a queen–to chase the king across the board until he has nowhere left to run. In our online chess classes, students are taught how to start winning games with this checkmating pattern as soon as they’ve learned the difference between check and checkmate.
So what does the ladder look like? Usually, it’s something like this:
The two white rooks have the king trapped in the corner, preventing him from escaping. All endgame checkmates are about trapping the king on either the edge or the side of the board. This gives the king less space to move, making a checkmate easier to achieve.
Which edge should you choose? It doesn’t matter too much – so long as you stick to forcing the king to that one edge. Try not to change your mind and decide to chase the king to a different edge.
But how do you force the king to the edge with two rooks?
We can start with a random position like this:
Starting to see a pattern? The two rooks are moving down one after another like they’re climbing a ladder. That’s why this is called the ladder checkmate! When everything is going great, each rook continues to climb up or down the ladder (or maybe monkey bars, if they’re going sideways) to force the king to the edge.
But you might notice there are two problems here. First is the fact that white’s king is in the way. Sometimes another piece, especially a pawn, might be in the way instead. If that happens, take a few moves to get those other pieces out of the way so the rooks can keep climbing up or down the ladder.
The other problem is the enemy king.
A good chess player will position his king like this:
The black king is trying to get close to the rooks to prevent them from going down, or maybe even capture them! So how can we get our pieces out of danger?
The answer is to swing them to the other side like this:
Swing to the side, and the king can't catch up!
Can a king catch up with a rook? Of course not! The king might slowly lumber towards the rooks, but as soon as he gets close, the rook will slide across the board to safety. The king may try to chase the rooks towards the other side, but the rooks will keep climbing the ladder and force him to the edge before he has a chance to reach them. Game over!
With two queens, or a rook and a queen, the ladder checkmate is even easier. For that reason, you should practice with two rooks first. Give it a shot on your own chessboard, or check out Chess.com. Their chess endgame challenges will let you practice the ladder checkmate in a variety of patterns. For now, you can practice from this basic position:
The King-Queen Checkmate: Three Simple Steps
Another basic endgame checkmate is the king and queen checkmate. It's taught at the Bishops level in our online Academy program and is the second checkmating pattern our students learn. While it is slightly more advanced than the ladder checkmate, it can be quite simple as long as you avoid falling into some basic traps. Let’s look at this position:
The black king is in trouble.
Just like in the ladder checkmate, the first step is to decide which corner you want to force the king to and stick to that corner. You probably want to pick the corner that the enemy king is closest to. In this case, it would be the top left corner.
Because the queen is so strong, she can do most of the work at first while the king sits back.
Once you’ve chosen a direction to head in, get the queen to a spot where she's a knight’s move away from the enemy king. In this position, she should go to one of these squares:
The white queen should go to the red dot, but the squares marked with a blue dot will work too.
After the queen gets to a good place, it will be your opponent’s move, and they will move their king somewhere. So what should you do after that?
Follow the enemy king.
If the king goes up, the queen goes up.
If the king goes right, the queen goes right.
If the king goes diagonally, the queen goes diagonally.
Again, like the ladder checkmate, there may be pieces blocking your way when you try to copy the king. You should move or knock out those pieces. But above all else, do your best to keep the queen a knight’s move away.
Eventually, you’ll end up in a position like this:
White has nearly won - but there is a trap to watch out for!
The enemy king has been forced into the corner. Good job!
But do not follow him any further. If you do, the game will end in a stalemate, which is a type of tie. That will mean all your hard work will have been for nothing.
Instead, bring the king over to help.
Get the king as close to the enemy king as possible, but be careful. There’s one important thing to note at this stage:
Where should the white king go?
Many chess players call the king-queen checkmate the box checkmate or the cage checkmate. Right now, the queen has the king trapped in a tiny cage. This cage has two walls: the long wall (as shown by the red line) and the short wall (as shown by the blue line).
Your king always needs to go to the long wall. You will not be able to pull off a checkmate if the king goes to the short wall.
That may take a little while, but you have plenty of time. The poor enemy king has no choice but to hop back and forth between his two safe squares, awaiting defeat. And once you get your own king as close as you can:
Checkmate!
Of course, there are different ways this checkmate can be practiced. Check out Chess.com’s Queen Mate challenge to try it out in other positions, or try your hand on the chess board below:
Practicing Checkmates Matters
There is nothing more frustrating for a coach or parent than watching a kid who has a winning position fail to pull off a checkmate. In our online classes, your child will have the chance to learn and practice a range of checkmates and endgame positions, as well as ways of defending against them. Interested in trying one? Sign up for a $5 trial chess class.
No matter how far along a player is in their chess journey, it’s crucial to practice all sorts of different endgames to close the game out. Newer players should make sure to practice the ladder checkmate on a home chessboard or online. As basketball coach Bobby Knight once said, “The key is not the will to win. Everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”
Leave a comment