To checkmate with a queen, you use the queen to shrink the enemy king's space until it is trapped on the edge of the board, then bring your own king close enough to protect the queen as it gives mate next to the enemy king. A queen cannot do it alone. With correct play, king and queen vs king is always a win, and it never takes more than 10 moves from any legal position with White to move.
Every queen checkmate happens on the edge, with the king's help
We generated every legal king and queen vs king position and checked each checkmate with chess.js. There are 364 checkmate positions, and in every one of them the lone king is on the edge of the board and the two kings stand no more than two squares apart. In plain terms: drive the king to an edge, and bring your king up. Those two facts are the whole method.
The method in four steps
Step 1: Box the king in with the queen
Start from a typical position with the pieces far apart.
8/8/8/4k3/8/8/8/3QK3 w - - 0 1
Open the starting position → · Play it against the computer →
White has 21 legal moves here and mates in 7 with best play (confirmed by Stockfish 17.1 with go mate 7; its first move is 1.Qd7). Do not chase the king with checks. Checks rarely take squares away. Instead, place the queen so it cuts off ranks and files and the black king's box gets smaller with every queen move.
Step 2: Use the knight's-move trick
The fastest way to shrink the box is to keep your queen a knight's move away from the enemy king. From there the queen covers every square the king could step towards, so the king can only go backwards or sideways. Each time the king moves, move the queen to the next knight's-move square, and the king walks to the edge.
6k1/8/5Q2/8/8/8/8/K7 w - - 0 1
Open the knight's-move position →
The queen on f6 is a knight's move from the king on g8, and the king is already on the edge. White's own king is on a1, as far away as it can be, and it is still mate in 7 (Stockfish 17.1, go mate 7).
Step 3: Freeze the king, then walk your king over
Once the king is on the edge, play 1.Qe7. Now the black king has exactly one legal move each turn, shuffling between g8 and h8. You have all the time you need, so walk your king across the board:
1.Qe7 Kh8 2.Kb2 Kg8 3.Kc3 Kh8 4.Kd4 Kg8 5.Ke5 Kh8 6.Kf6 Kg8
We replayed this line with chess.js: Black has exactly one legal move after every White move.
Step 4: Deliver mate next to the king
6k1/4Q3/5K2/8/8/8/8/8 w - - 0 1
Now 7.Qg7#. The king on f6 protects the queen, so Black cannot capture it, and every escape square is covered. That is 7 moves from the earlier position, the fastest possible.
The stalemate trap
The danger in this ending is not losing, it is drawing. A queen covers so many squares that it is easy to take away every king move without giving check, which is stalemate. Go back to the position after 1.Qe7 Kh8. If White now plays the natural-looking 2.Qf7??, it is stalemate:
7k/5Q2/8/8/8/8/8/K7 b - - 0 1
Black is not in check and has zero legal moves: g8, g7 and h7 are all covered by the queen. The game is drawn with a full queen extra. Read what stalemate is if the rule is new to you.
The rule that prevents it: once the king is on the edge with only two squares, stop moving the queen. Move your king instead, and move the queen only to give mate.
How long does a queen checkmate take?
We solved king and queen vs king completely with a retrograde search: starting from every checkmate, we worked backwards one move at a time until every position was labelled with its exact distance to mate. We counted all 144,508 legal positions with White to move (no board symmetry removed). Every one is a win.
| Moves to mate | Positions | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | 16,524 | 11.4% |
| 4–6 | 78,192 | 54.1% |
| 7–8 | 47,104 | 32.6% |
| 9–10 | 2,688 | 1.9% |
Method: our own move generator, with chess.js used to check the mate and stalemate positions and Stockfish 17.1 used to confirm the mate distances of the positions shown above. The average is 5.6 moves and the maximum is 10, reached by only 8 positions. One more number matters for practice: in 11,144 of these positions (7.7%), White has at least one move that stalemates on the spot. Those squares are always close to the cornered king.
You will not play perfectly in a game, and you do not need to. The fifty-move rule gives you 50 moves without a capture or pawn move, five times the worst case, so the box method has plenty of room.
Practice it against Stockfish
Win this position yourself:
8/8/8/4k3/8/8/8/3QK3 w - - 0 1
Practice the queen checkmate → · Play it against the computer →
Play it against the computer for a real test: the link opens this position on the Play page. Choose your side and the Strongest level, and Stockfish defends as well as it can. To study with engine hints instead, use the analysis board: tick "Update the suggestion after each move", play your White move on the board, then press Black to move to see Stockfish's best defence and play it. Repeat until you mate. If you stalemate, start again and stop moving the queen earlier. Press White to move at any point to compare your move with Stockfish's.
Frequently asked questions
How many moves does a queen checkmate take?
At most 10 moves with perfect play from any legal position with White to move, and 5.6 moves on average across all positions in our full solve.
How do you avoid stalemate with king and queen?
Once the enemy king is stuck on the edge with two squares to move between, do not move your queen again until it gives mate. Bring your king up instead. Before every queen move near the corner, check that the enemy king still has a legal move or is in check.
Can a queen checkmate alone?
No. In all 364 king and queen vs king checkmate positions, the attacking king stands within two squares of the lone king, either protecting the queen or covering escape squares. Without your king, the lone king can always capture the queen or step away.
What is the box method with the queen?
It means treating the ranks and files your queen controls as the walls of a box around the enemy king, then moving the queen so the box keeps getting smaller. The knight's-move trick is the quickest way to do it.
The rook mate uses the same box idea with fewer squares covered, so learn the king and rook checkmate next, then the two bishops checkmate. For more mating patterns see back-rank mate, and test any ending in the analysis board or the endgame practice set.