Melania stood in front of Trump
(twitter.com)
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I'm not very knowledgeable in Chess but the comments on the tweet also talk about how the Queen cannot Checkmate unless assisted by the King.
I wonder if this means we'll be seeing some moves from Melania? Or perhaps she already has and I've missed them.
Is not chess. (It can be the answer to specific chess puzzles/scenarios, but it's not a rule of chess.) Checkmate can be accomplished with or without king, with or without queen, and by any number of other pieces. Usually (i.e., almost always) it's a combo of pieces.
I think it means that if you just had a queen you could not force checkmate on your opponent. You could check him all round the board but you could not get close enough to cover all the necessary squares.
However, if you used the king as well, and you would have a king if you were still playing, then the king could protect the queen when it was next to the opposing king so it could then cover all the necessary squares.
So you are right, it is not a rule, just a fact of life.
You can checkmate with just a queen. It is the most powerful piece. Did it many times in longer games. But game over with no King.
You can checkmate with just 1 piece outside the king.
Can you give an example of a final position?
The closest I can get is King at square a1 and Queen at square b2. The problem with that is that the King can take the Queen so not checkmate.
If the Queen is farther away then the King always has somewhere to move to.