Two Major Pieces
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Two major pieces (queens or rooks) can easily force checkmate on the edge of the board, even without the help of their king. The process is to put the two pieces on adjacent ranks or files and gradually force the king to the side of the board, where one piece keeps the king on the edge of the board while the other delivers checkmate (Pandolfini 1988:18–20).
In the first diagram, White checkmates easily by forcing the black king to the edge a rank at a time or a file at a time:
- 1. Qg5+ Kd4
- 2. Rf4+ Ke3
- 3. Qg3+ Ke2
- 4. Rf2+ Ke1
- 5. Qg1# (second diagram) (Silman 2007:7–8).
The checkmate with two queens or with two rooks is similar (Pandolfini 1988:20).
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| a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h | ||
| 8 | 8 | ||||||||
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Checkmate can be forced even away from the edge of the board with two rooks and a king, or with a queen, rook, and king, while two queens are able to force checkmate in the center without the help of the king (Pandolfini 2009:32–33).
Read more about this topic: Checkmate
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