Game infoCheckmate (often shortened to mate) is a game position in chess (and in other board games of the chaturanga family) in which a player's king is in check (threatened with capture) and there is no way to remove the threat. Checkmating the opponent wins the game.
In chess the king is never actually captured – the game ends as soon as the king is checkmated. In master and serious amateur play, most players resign an inevitably lost game before being checkmated, and it is considered bad etiquette to continue playing in a completely hopeless position.
If a player is not in check but has no legal move, then it is stalemate, and the game immediately ends in a draw. A checkmating move is recorded in algebraic notation using the hash symbol (#) – for example, 34.Qh8#.
