King and Queen vs Lone King

Search K+Q vs K positions from real Lichess games — the textbook checkmate every player must master. Watch the queen and king coordinate to corner the lone king.

About this pattern

King and queen against a lone king is the first checkmate every chess player learns. The technique is straightforward: walk the enemy king to the edge with the queen, bring up your own king, and deliver mate. The two pitfalls beginners hit are stalemate (the queen overconstraining a king with no legal moves) and the 50-move rule. With clean technique, the mate takes at most 10 moves from any starting position.

Example positions

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