In this course you've learned to capture your opponent's pieces, and to defend your own pieces. If you've managed to get a winning material advantage, it is likely you will have to checkmate your opponent in the endgame. In this chapter you can learn and practice to checkmate your opponent with a queen, with a rook, or with two bishops.

In this level you can checkmate the opponent's king with your king and rook.

Here are some tips:

What the checkmate looks like

The rook alone is not able to deliver checkmate. Again your king has to help. King and rook can deliver checkmate on the edge of the board.

Diagram 1: The rook delivers checkmate on the back-rank, while your king prevents escape by guarding the second rank. To do that, the kings have to be on the same file.
Diagram 2: Often the checkmate is delivered in the corner. This is easier, because there are only two squares on the second rank, and the kings don't have to be on the same file.

How to get there

Combine the following two ideas until the opponent's king is checkmated:

1. Use the rook to restrict the opponent's king.
2. Then bring in your own king and force the opponent's king further toward the edge or corner of the board.

The difference to checkmating with the queen

This is fundamentally the same plan as when you have a queen instead of a rook. However, there are some differences:

1. The king can make a move and attack the rook, which is not possible with a queen.
2. Forcing the king back one rank with a rook is only possible if the kings are in opposition.
3. Stalemate can only happen in a corner, with a queen it can happen anywhere on the edge of the board.

In general this makes it a bit more difficult to checkmate with a rook, and you will usually need more moves until checkmate is achieved.

Example

The kings are in opposition, and White can play 1.Ra6+ to force the king back to the seventh rank, for example 1...Ke7.

However, now if White plays 2.Ke5, Black could leave the opposition with 2...Kd7, and a check with 3.Ra7+ would not force the king to the back rank, and the black king could escape with 3...Kc6. (Note that with a queen instead of a rook, White could just have played 3.Qb7+ instead.)

Instead of that, it is better to play 2.Kd5.
Then if Black were to play 2...Kd7, 3.Ra7+ would force the black king to the back rank.
And if Black plays 2...Kf7, we can continue to push the king towards the side of the board with 3.Ke5.

When playing this level, you can look at the solutions to see the quickest way to deliver checkmate.