stalemate question

i just had three queens and was closing in on my oppenents only piece, the king, when it said stalemate.  Why does it do that when i am obviously about to win.  I am new to this so i dont know, but i was thinking that its a bit cheesy not to resign at that point.  

It means that the opposing side had no legal moves. Because you are not allowed to move your king into check and your queens hit all of the squares around the king he could not move. It is probably easier to learn to checkmate with a single queen than it is to make sure you do not stalemate the king with 3 queens.

Stalemate means that your opponent has no available moves left. That is he cannont move without moving into check.  Obviously there is no way a person can EVER move into check but since it is his turn the game ends in a draw. You want to watch out for that, it is the best chance you got when badly outnumbered to save face. However as you proceed you will see it should never happen.

Its not my job to come up with rules, its my job to play by these rules but i have to say thats the dumbest rule i have ever heard...thats like saying if i can run under a flying spear on the battlefield i should be able to save face....oh well, take the good with the bad.  I just find it odd that the person actually feels like they have saved face at that point....thought i would share my thoughts so all you veterans can laugh at the newbie figuring it out...maybe it will bring back some childhood memories:)

You'll like it more when you're on the other end.

heh, it's really not a dumb rule.  by definition, after you move it's your opponent's turn.  if he can't take his turn, the game is drawn.  gotta watch and make sure you leave him/her with at least one move while you are trying to mate.  it adds to the strategy!  :)

I think it's a great rule. If your behind and you can force a stalemate, it's like a pardon for your sins. 

I'm reminded of the old saying, I felt sorry for myself because I was down three queens, until I met a man who stalemated when up three queens.

A stalemate is a win for you if you were not on the attacking side of the board. Your king lived to see another day.   Unlike this picture

Yeah.  One time on FICS, someone had a bishop and two pawns and I had a lone king.  He decided to be a jerk and promote one of his pawns to a knight, but it bit him in the butt-i was stalemated in the corner.

@CMFDKF: You  might enjoy chinese chess (spelt something like xianqi).  The game is extremely tactical from the start and Stalemate wins!!  Also, a protagonist who is trying to force repetition of a position (eg perpetual checking) must not continue to do so. 

In International chess, perpetual checks and the like are legit ways of forcing a draw.

In a stalemate one side has no legal moves. In zugzwang there are legal moves. That is the difference.

Why did you quote my comment without saying anything afterwards? Just seems strange to me.

A quote from Grandmaster Larry Kaufman: "In my view, calling stalemate a draw is totally illogical, since it represents the ultimate zugzwang, where any move would get your king taken" (Kaufman 2009). 

Here is some interesting history on stalemates:

The stalemate rule has had a convoluted history (Murray 1913:61). Although today stalemate is universally recognized as a draw, for much of the game's history that has not been the case. In the forerunners to modern chess, such as shatranj, stalemate was a win for the side administering it (Murray 1913:229,267). This practice persisted in chess as played in early 15th-century Spain (Murray 1913:781). However,Lucena (c. 1497) treated stalemate as an inferior form of victory (Murray 1913:461), which in games played for money won only half the stake, and this continued to be the case in Spain as late as 1600 (Murray 1913:833). The rule in England from about 1600 to 1800 was that stalemate was a loss for the player administering it, a rule that the eminent chess historian H. J. R. Murray believes may have been adopted fromRussian chess (Murray 1913:60–61,466). That rule disappeared in England before 1820, being replaced by the French and Italian rule that a stalemate was a drawn game (Murray 1913:391).

LOL!! That was EXACTLY what I was thinking!

Why would your posterior be playing chess?

haha great, my first month playing and already thinking like a grandmaster:)  It's good to know other people feel the same way.  We need to start a petition and return stalemate to the way it should be scored...a LOSS for the person that CANT MOVE ANYWHERE!!!!!   Don't you guys just love newbies that try and change the rules.  I know, shut up and play, ok, i hear ya, but have to say this thread was pretty funny, you guys crack me up!

There are stalemates in which the king cannot move at all, check or no check, so your zugzwang idea doesn't really work;