Checkmate
winning game position in chess
Checkmate (often shortened to mate) is any game position in chess and other chess-like games in which a player's king is in check (threatened with capture) and there is no possible escape. Checkmating the opponent wins the game.
In chess, shogi, and other related games, the king is never actually captured. The player loses as soon as their king is checkmated. In formal games, it is usually considered good etiquette to resign an inevitably lost game before being checkmated.
If a player is not in check but has no legal moves, then it is stalemate, and the game immediately ends in a draw. A checkmating move is recorded in algebraic notation using the hash symbol "#", for example: 34.Qg3#.
Examples
A mate may occur in as few as two moves on one side with all of the pieces still on the board (as in fool's mate, in the opening phase of the game), in a middlegame position (as in the 1956 game called the Game of the Century between Donald Byrne and Bobby Fischer), or after many moves with as few as three pieces in an endgame.
Etymology
The term checkmate is, according to the Barnhart Etymological Dictionary, an alteration of the Persian phrase "shāh māt" (شاه مات), which means "the King is helpless". Persian "māt" applies to the king but in Sanskrit "māta", also pronounced "māt", applied to his kingdom "traversed, measured across, and meted out" thoroughly by his opponent; "māta" is the past participle of "mā" verbal root.
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