Checkmate (frequently shortene to mate) is a situation in chess (and in other boardgames of the chaturanga family) in which one player's king is threatened with capture (in check) and there is no way to meet that threat. Delivering checkmate is the ultimate goal in chess: a player who is checkmated loses the game (the king is never actually captured – the game ends as soon as the king is checkmated). In practice, most players resign an inevitably lost game before being checkmated.