Longest checkmates in chess

Introduction

On this page I collect chess positions with longest direct checkmate line. One such position is listed for every configuration of pieces. Each item has configuration of pieces, followed by number of moves in the longest direct checkmate line, followed by the example positon in FEN.

These results ignore 50 moves rule, because it is ignored in the endgame tables I use. It is possible that with tables aware of 50 moves rule the longest checkmate line will be shorter in some endgames. Also these results don't consider castling possibility.

I used Wilhelm program developed by Rafael Andrist and endgame tablebases generated by Eugene Nalimov and Andrew Kadatch. All 3, 4 and 5 chessmen configurations are already listed, and many of the 6-men.

Comments, questions, suggestions are welcome! Please post at the Endgame Tablebases Forum, or contact me directly.

Links:



sorted by configuration  |   sorted by length
2+1 | 3+1 | 2+2 | 4+1 | 3+2 | 2+3 | 4+2 | 3+3 | 2+4


Created in 2004-2008 by Kirill Kryukov