King and queen vs king
Also known as KQ vs K, Queen mate
The most important checkmate every player must know. With king and queen against a lone king, you steer the defender to the edge, bring your own king up to support, and deliver mate with the queen one square away. Here White's king on e6 backs up Qe7#.
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How it works
The black king sits on e8, on the edge with no rank behind it. The queen drops to e7, giving check from point-blank range. From e7 it also covers d8 and f8 along the diagonals and d7 and f7 along the rank. The king cannot capture the queen because the white king on e6 defends e7. With the escape squares d7, f7, d8 and f8 all controlled by queen or king, the black king has nowhere to go - checkmate.
How to spot it
This arises at the end of almost every game where you promote a pawn or start a queen up. The technique: use the queen to fence the enemy king toward an edge (keeping a knight's-move distance to avoid stalemate), march your own king up to stand two squares from the trapped king in opposition, then deliver the queen beside the king with your king guarding it. Always check the defender still has a legal move until the very move you mate - the great danger here is stalemate.
Key ideas
- Drive the lone king to any edge of the board - it cannot be mated in the centre
- Bring your own king up; the queen alone cannot mate, it needs the king's support
- Place your king two squares from the enemy king (opposition) to back the mating square
- Beware stalemate - never take the last escape square unless the move is check
- Keep a knight's-move gap with the queen while herding, to leave the king a move
- The final blow is the queen one square away, defended by your king
Famous example
A textbook endgame found in every primer; it is the standard finish after queening a pawn, and the first checkmate technique taught to beginners.