In the game of chess, perpetual check is a situation in which one player can force a draw by an unending series of checks. Such a situation typically arises when the player who is checking cannot deliver checkmate; while failing to continue the series of checks gives the opponent at least a chance to win. A draw by perpetual check is no longer one of the rules of chess. However, such a situation will eventually result in a draw by either threefold repetition or the fifty-move rule, but usually players agree to a draw (Burgess 2000:478).
Perpetual check can also occur in other chess variants, although the rules relating to it may be different. For example, giving perpetual check is not allowed (an automatic loss for the giver) in both shogi and xiangqi.
Famous quotes containing the words perpetual and/or check:
“It is the perpetual dread of fear, the fear of fear, that shapes the face of a brave man.”
—Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)
“Experience was to be taken as showing that one might get a five-pound note as one got a light for a cigarette; but one had to check the friendly impulse to ask for it in the same way.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)