Queen vs Rook
A 'basic win' that has humbled masters for centuries
Queen versus rook is won for the queen: the tablebase says mate in at most 31 moves. It is also the ending where human winners fail most often: the rook clings to its king, the checks never seem to end, and the 50-move counter climbs. The win is real, but it must be learned.
Play this ending (free)Why it's hard: the rook hugs its king
The defender's strategy is simple and maddening: keep the rook adjacent to the king (or one knight's-move away where it can't be forked), decline every trade, and check whenever your king steps forward carelessly. Separated from its king, the rook falls to a queen fork within a few checks; every defender knows it, so the two pieces move as one huddled unit toward the safest edge.
Your assets: the queen out-ranges the rook absolutely, your king is allowed to join the attack (the defender's king can never help its rook), and zugzwang; the huddle has very few safe shuffles, and you can run it out of them.
The winning method
Phase one: herd. Use queen checks and king steps to push the defending pair to the board's edge. Centralize your queen, walk your king up under its cover: no hurry, no unforced checks.
Phase two: zugzwang the huddle. The classic finale is the Philidor queen-vs-rook position: defending king on the edge, rook beside it, your king a knight's move from theirs, and it's their move. Every rook move now steps out of the king's protection into a forking radius; every king move abandons the rook or walks into mate threats. If the same position arrives with you to move, triangulate with the queen (the queen loses a tempo effortlessly; a rook-king huddle cannot) to hand the move back. Phase three: collect. Chase the fleeing rook with checks until a fork wins it; then it's the basic queen mate.
The third-rank defense: the last trap
The defender's best practical try is the third-rank defense: king on the back rank, rook planted on its third rank, building a fence your king cannot cross without being harassed by checks from the side. It looks like a fortress. It isn't: the queen infiltrates behind the fence with a precise sequence of quiet moves and checks, attacks the rook from behind, and forces it off the rank, after which the huddle-and-zugzwang plan resumes.
This is the ending where practicing against a tablebase pays fastest: perfect defense makes every human shortcut fail, and the 31-move budget punishes wandering. Once you've beaten the machine, the human version feels like a formality.
Questions
Is a queen vs rook endgame a draw?
No: with no pawns on the board, queen versus rook is a tablebase win for the queen in at most 31 moves from any winning position. It only ends in draws when the winner doesn't know the method, which happens even in master games.
Who wins queen vs two rooks?
That is a different, much more balanced ending: two coordinated rooks are roughly equal to a queen, and pawnless queen versus two rooks is generally a draw with correct play. The forced win on this page is specifically queen against a single rook.
How does the winner make progress against a defending rook?
Herd king and rook to the edge, reach the standard zugzwang position (attacker's king a knight's move from the defender's), and use a queen triangulation to hand the defender the move. Every reply then loosens the rook, which falls to a fork within a few checks.
What is the third-rank defense in queen vs rook?
The defender's toughest setup: the rook stands on the third rank in front of its king, fencing the attacking king out. It fails to precise queen maneuvers that attack the rook from behind, but it defeats attackers who only know general principles.
Don't just read it, play it
Every position below is playable right now, free, no signup, against a tablebase-perfect opponent that never gives up and explains every mistake.
Queen vs Rook
White to play and win
Queen vs Pawn on the Seventh
White to play and win
Drawing Queen vs Rook Pawn
Black to play and draw
Follow the full curriculum (free)or sharpen these endings in the Gym