What is a Stalemate in a Chess Game?

Video Transcript

"Now I'm going to tell you about stalemate. Stalemate is a situation in chess that leads to a draw. And it arises basically when a King cannot move without going into check. So notice the difference with checkmate. With checkmate, he is put into check by the opposition. In stalemate, he is not already in check, but he cannot move without going into check. Now here is an example of this. It usually happens at the end of the game and when there are a few pieces left on the board, although it can happen at other times also. Now suppose that, in this situation, white were to decide that he needs to protect this pawn. Black could, as things stand, simply take the white pawn. So therefore, to protect his pawn, white moves up to here. Now this is the problem. As things now stand, it is black to move, and black cannot move without going into check. If black takes the pawn, he would be in check from the other King, so that would be an illegal move. He cannot do that. He cannot go here because the pawn takes diagonally and therefore, he could be taken by the pawn. And he cannot go here, because he would then be taken by the opposing King. Therefore, there is no legal move that black can make without actually going into check. Therefore, he is stalemated and the game is a draw. And it's very important to remember, stalemate is a draw. And you want to avoid stalemate if you're playing with white, obviously, because you've built up this advantage and now it's gone, it's wasted. Conversely, of course, and we'll get more into this later, but if you're black, you'd love to have a stalemate, draw in this situation."