Perpetual attack

A perpetual attack is a mechanism in which a player can keep renewing a threat against the king, a valuable piece, or another target without allowing the opponent to break free and continue a plan. The sequence forms a cycle: whenever the target moves or the threat is answered, the attacker creates essentially the same problem again.

Perpetual check is the best-known case, but it is narrower because every attack is a check against the king. Chess studies, composed positions designed as problems that demonstrate an idea, also contain perpetual pursuits of a queen or rook and repeated threats of mate or promotion, when a pawn reaches the last rank and becomes another piece. The side with fewer pieces or pawns often uses this resource as counterplay, active play that creates problems for the opponent, to stop an advantage from being converted.

The term is not itself a separate draw rule. In a game, a draw occurs only through a recognized rule, most commonly repetition of the same position: under the Laws of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), a player may claim on the third occurrence, while the fifth occurrence makes the draw automatic. If the defender can leave the cycle safely, the attack is not truly perpetual.