GM Joel on Checkmate Etiquette

I'm back folks! In the meantime here's an interesting article written by GM Joel Benjamin on checkmate etiquette. Enjoy!


A reader wavers from yelling "Checkmate, you lose!" and saying "nice game."

My problem is out of mutual respect for the opponents that I compete against, I don't believe in saying "checkmate" to them. I don't want to embarrass them, and I just simply say "nice game", as I was checkmated in a tournament game back in the 1980's, and my youthful opponent said to me "nice game". I played speed chess against a guy name Roy, and after I checkmated him in the first game, I said "nice game", and he went ballistic on me saying that I should say "checkmate". So in our 2nd speed game, I checkmated him again, and yelled at the top of my lungs "checkmate Roy, you lose!"

I know I exhibited the extremes in both of these cases, and I guess my question is, what is the rule or correct etiquette about saying "checkmate"?

From USCF Website