Draws

Can you win with only a king?

Updated · Sergei Tovmasian

Short answer

No. A king cannot give check, so a player left with nothing but a king can never deliver checkmate and can never win the game. The best a bare king can do is draw, by stalemate, by the fifty-move rule, or because the other side has too little material to mate. A flag fall does not help either: it is scored as a draw (Art. 6.9).

Black has a king and eleven seconds. White has a king, a knight and half an hour. Neither of them can win this.

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A knight and a king against a bare king. White cannot mate, so Black's flag falling would be a draw. Black cannot mate either, so White's flag falling would be a draw too. There is nothing here for anybody.

A lone king cannot win because a king cannot give check. To attack the enemy king it would have to stand on a square next to him, and that square is attacked by definition, so the two kings can never touch. No check, no checkmate, no win. It does not matter how much time is on your clock or how badly your opponent plays.

What a bare king can still do

Quite a lot, actually, and this is the part worth learning.

It can be stalemated, which is a draw. It can run to the corner and count to fifty under the fifty-move rule while an opponent who never learned the bishop and knight mate flails at it. It can be drawn by the material rules: the moment the other side is down to a king and a bishop, or a king and a knight, the game is over as insufficient material.

So a bare king is not a resignation. It is a defensive task with a half point at the end of it, and I have seen strong juniors throw those half points away in blitz because they assumed the game was already lost.

A flag fall does not turn it into a win

The rule is Article 6.9. Normally your opponent’s flag falling loses him the game, but not when you could not mate him by any possible series of legal moves. With only a king you obviously could not, so the result is ½-½.

That cuts both ways. Your flag falls while your opponent has a king and a knight: draw. Your flag falls while he has a king and a rook: you lose, because the mate exists. A pawn counts as enough material too, since it can promote. The clock side of the rule is on what happens when your time runs out.

If you are the one holding the queen and the clock, the message is the opposite: nothing about that flag rule saves you from having to know the finish. Go and drill the basic endgames until mating with rook and king is automatic, because the bare king across the table is playing for a draw and it is a draw he can actually get.

More questions

Can a king checkmate on its own?

No, and not even with help. A king can never give check, because it would have to stand on a square next to the enemy king and that square is always attacked. It can take away escape squares in a mate delivered by a queen or a rook, but the check itself always comes from another piece.

What is the best result for a player with only a king?

A draw, and it is a real target. Head for the corner, aim for stalemate, count the fifty moves, and watch the material: if your opponent trades down to a bishop or a knight, the game is drawn on the spot. Plenty of half points come out of positions like that in blitz.

If my opponent has only a king and runs out of time, do I win?

Yes, if you have anything that can mate, such as a queen, a rook or a pawn. The draw on time only applies the other way round: it protects the player whose flag falls when the opponent has no way of mating. Two knights count as a way of mating even though they cannot force it.

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