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 Xiangqi for everybody
4 December 1999 |
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By Jouni Tolonen Basic checkmate patterns To understand the opening and the middlegame one has to understand the endgame. During the next lessons we will learn about the most important moments of the game, delivering checkmate or stalemate - both are wins of equal merit. Let's start from the simplest cases first: king + one piece versus king. The advisors and elephants are not able to check so they alone cannot win the game. The lone cannon doesn't have a necessary cannon mount to check the opposing king. The friendly king cannot act as a mount because the kings may never face each other. Pawn A pawn cannot deliver a checkmate even with help from the king - the win is achieved by waiting moves leading to a stalemate - where the opponent's king is not threatened but without legal moves. Let's take a look at the possible stalemate patterns with a pawn. The Red king's file is indicated when necessary. In all cases Red has just made a move, and it's Black (unable) to move.
Steps to win It's simple to achieve a stalemate with a pawn. All you have to remember is: In the following example, you can try to solve Red's task. The solution is given move by move below the diagram. In a single-pawn endgame the win is never in doubt if you just don't let the pawn reach the last rank.
In the next example Red has to take control of the central e-file.
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