I’ve never (not that I play a lot) run into this situation before:
H8 White King
F8 Black King
E6 Black Rook
G6 Black Queen
Now, this would be just fine were it black’s move. But it’s whites.
White cannot move, as white will get killed by either the black queen or king depending on where white moves. But at the same time, no single move of black’s will kill the king (kill, as opposed to mate. By kill I mean replace on the board).
So … 
What the heck happens now?
If white cannot move anywhere without being killed its a stalemate (draw.) This assumes that white has no other pieces that can move either.
If white cannot legally move without exposing its king to the enemy, it’s checkmate.
I do believe it’s a stalemate; the game’s over and neither side wins. Kind of sucks for black, being that close to actually winning the game.
I could be wrong, though. I’ll check with a friend of mine who would know.
Stalemate it is. I stand corrected.
I’m 99.975% sure it’s stalemate, and therefore a draw. If it’s your turn, and you’re not in check, and you have no legal moves, it’s a stalemate. When you’re down to just your King, that’s about all you have left to hope for, but no experienced player who’s ahead would allow a stalemate to occur.
In this situation, you don’t even need the Rook.
Yes, it is stalemate and it is a draw, but sometimes this is a critical point of the position! I can’t quite contradict Achernar (although I’m sure that stalemate has been forced on occasion with best play), but I can refer to one game that illustrates the theme:
In Chess Traps, Pitfalls & Swindles, I. A. Horowitz & Fred Reinfeld, ISBN 0-671-21041-6, the following position is shown:
White: Qc8, Bf5, Kg1, Pawns b7, f2, g2, h3
Black: Qd2, Ng6, Kh7, Pawns f6, g7, h4
which is Blackburne-Winawer (tournament and date not cited), with White to move.
The point of this position (Winawer’s last desperate attempt to save the game) is:
1 b8=Q?? Qc1+!!
2 Kh2 …
(if 2 Q:ci, then stalemate)
2 … Qf4+!!
3 Kg1 …
(if 3 Q:f4, stalemate.
if 3 g3, then 3…Q:f2+ and draws by perpetual)
3 … Qc1+!!
and black draws by perpetual check.
Blackburne actually played 1 B:g6 and Winawer resigned. The punctuation above is from the book: I would agree with the “??”, but award a single exclamation point solely to black’s first, not “!!” to all three moves.
The motif does not come up very often in master play - problems are another matter - but is a very beautiful subtlety when it does.
Good old I. A. Horowitz! “Solitaire Chess” and “Winning Chess Tactics Illustrated.” Favorites of my childhood, trapped by parental visitation in my father’s house with NOTHING to do but learn how to play chess.
Or you could do it without the queen, if you prefer. It is possible to mate with just the rook and king.
True, but even experienced players make mistakes. I seem to recall that Kasparov accidentally drew a game he was winning and became so flustered that he eventually lost the tournament, but I’ll have to look the moves up.
Heck, you can stalemate with just a Pawn and a King. Or any single piece and a King, for that matter.
Achernar, granted. I just wanted to point out that it didn’t have to be a queen. And since, for the position in question, Black only also had a rook…
Mighty, I believe to game to which you are referring occurred during a blitz tournament. It’s discussed in “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess,” among other places.
Ah, yes, one of my great triumphs of casual play. I was down to my King, opponent queened her only pawn. “I assume you know how to win with King & Queen vs. King?” she said. “Yes,” I replied, “but I don’t know if you do.” About eight moves later (very annoyed moves, too, on her part), I was pleased to announce a stalemate.
Damn, I’m a jerk sometimes. 
Yes, and it’s probably reasonable in the context of this thread to consider the position:
White: King e6, Pawn d7
Black: King d8
If it is black to move, he loses:
1 … Kc7
2 Ke7 any
3 d8=Q
and mate soon follows (unless you’re playing SCSimmons’ friend! :D).
If it is white to move, it’s a draw. The only move which does not allow black to capture the pawn is Kd6, which is stalemate.
The above position (or its mirror image, and perhaps shifted by a few files … must be precise!) is fundamental to the study of end-games. It is the first position you learn when studying end-games. An aspiring player of fine endgames must know all about it, and how to play simple King and Pawn endgames that will eventually become this position before he can do anything else.
If this position, and how to achieve it with best play on both sides, is not known, you don’t know how to evaluate, say, whether to swap rooks in a R+P vs. R endgame … and on and on until you get to the point where you don’t know how to play a middlegame, since you can’t evaluate whether or not to enter the endgame phase.
Thus, one may say that the concept of stalemate is fundamental to chess.
Indeed, I rarely lose games to my lesser-skilled friends. My win/draw/lose percentages are probably 75/20/5. It isn’t that I hate losing—I’m not really that competitive—but I love trying to get a stalemate when I’m losing. It can be quite a challenge.
I enforce 50 moves, three-state, and the standard “king can’t move” rules.
Try this:
hmmm
I haven’t played in years…
What is the three-state rule?
The board cannot be (end up) in the same state three times, with all pieces in the same place. This tends to happen around tough checkmates when kings and bishops (for example) oscillate. In the link above I gave, see 5.2.d and 9.2.
As 9.2 indicates, though, it needn’t happen because of repitious moves. Indeed, only the board state itself need be considered. But since I am not quite nerdy enough to record the board state in any way this one never comes up, and is probably quite rare anyway.
Of course a draw by repetition of the position is not a stalemate.
The 50-move rule apparently has not been rescinded, even though computers have shown that some positions cannot be won in 50 moves. http://www.kemmunet.net.mt/chessmalta/fidelaws/article9.html