King (chess)

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Chess pieces
	King
	Queen
	Rook
	Bishop
	Knight
	Pawn

Image:Chess tile kd.svg

The King is the most important (but not the most powerful) 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.

1 Movement
2 Role in gameplay
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Movement

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Possible movements of the unhindered King piece

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.

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Possible movements of the King piece when hindered by the borders or other pieces; note that the black king cannot move to the squares under attack by the white bishop.

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 exceptions to this rule are that it may not move onto a square that is threatened by an enemy piece, or one that is already occupied by another piece on its own side. As with most pieces, it captures by moving onto a square occupied by an enemy piece.

[edit] Castling

Main article: 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. Castling is allowed only when neither the King nor castling rook have previously moved, when no squares between them are occupied, and when neither the square the King is moving from, to, nor across is under enemy control.

[edit] 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.

[edit] Stalemate

A stalemate occurs when, for the player with the move:

The player's 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 entice the opponent to inadvertently place the player's king in stalemate in order to avoid a loss.

[edit] Role in gameplay

Image:Chess king and pawns.jpg

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.