King (chess)
The
King (â™"♚) is the most important piece in the
game of
chess. The king represents the prize the opposition seeks to win. If a player's king is threatened and cannot escape capture, the king is said to be in
checkmate, and the player which owns that king loses the game.In a conventional game of chess, White starts with the king in the middle-right of their first rank (between the
queen and the king-side
bishop). Black starts with the king directly across from the white king. In
algebraic notation, the white king starts on e1 and the black king on e8.
A king can move one square in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally). The distance it can move is known as the
Chebyshev distance. The exception to this rule is that it may not move onto a square that is threatened by an enemy piece. As with most pieces, it captures by moving onto a square occupied by an enemy piece.
Castling
In conjunction with a
rook, the king may make a special move called castling. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards either one of the original rooks, then moving the rook onto the square over which the king crossed.
Check and checkmate
If a player's move places the opponent's king under attack, that king is said to be in
check, and the player in check is required to immediately remedy the situation. There are three possible methods to remove the king from check:
* Physically moving the king to an adjacent non-threatened square
* Interposing a piece between the king in check and the attacking piece (in order to break the line of threat)
* Capturing the attacking piece
If none of these three options are possible, the player's king has been
checkmated and the player loses the game.
Stalemate
A
stalemate occurs under a specific set of circumstances:
* The king is not in check
* The player has no legal moves
If this happens, the king is said to have been stalemated and the game ends in a draw. A player who has very little or no chance of winning will often try to place the king in stalemate in order to avoid a loss.
In the
opening and middlegame, the king will rarely play an active role in the development of an offensive or defensive position. Instead, a player will normally try to
castle and seek safety on the edge of the board behind friendly
pawns. In the
endgame, however, the king emerges to play an active role as an offensive piece as well as assisting in the
promotion of their remaining pawns.
It is difficult to assign a value to the king relative to the other pieces, as it cannot be captured or exchanged. In this sense, its value is infinite. But as an assessment of the king's capability as an offensive piece in the endgame, it is often considered to be slightly stronger than a bishop or knight --
Lasker in
Lasker's Chess Primer gave it the value of a knight and a pawn.
*
Chess piece*
King's graph*
Piececlopedia: King by Hans L. Bodlaender and Fergus Duniho.
