How the King moves and captures
Thursday, 13. August 2009
The king is the cornerstone of the chess game. If you loss the king then you are totally incapacitated as the King is very vital in the chess game. If you lose any other piece you can still manage to play on, but if you lose the King, you lose the game automatically. The movements of the King is in many ways similar to that of the Queen. The only difference is that you have to move one square at a time. Therefore it can move forwards, backwards, sideways, or diagonally.
The King controls eight squares, as it always does except when it is on the edge of the board. The edge of the King has only five moves when towards the end while when in a corner the King’s movements are totally restricted.
Just like all the chessmen except the Knight, the King cannot jump over other men or move onto a square occupied by a man of its own color. The king captures the same way as it moves. Incase you have forgotten ,capturing means taking the opponent’s men off the board and moving your man onto the square the opponent’s man occupied. Capturing ,however, is not compulsory in chess.
Check.
When the king has been attacked by an enemy piece, it is said to be “in check”. A fundamental rule of chess is that whenever a player’s King is put into check, the player must immediately, on the next move, get his King out of check. To comply with this, a King is never allowed to move into check either. This simply means that a King must never be moved onto a square where it will be within the capturing range of an enemy piece.Consequently, neither King can put the other into check, and hence the two Kings can never stand on the adjacent squares.Also,a King cannot capture a defended enemy piece, since this would put the King itself into check. If the King has been moved into check mistakenly, as soon as the mistake is identified, the position before the King was left in check or moved into check must be set up and another move must be made. Checking is not a must, nor is good or bad.
How to get out of check.
There are three different ways to get out of check:
-By moving the King to a safe square which cannot be attacked by an opponent’s man.
-By moving one of your men between your King and the checking piece.
-By the capture of the King which is checking your King.
If none of the three ways of getting out of check are possible, then your King is said to be checkmated and you have consequently lost the game.
Therefore, to win you have to checkmate your opponent’s King and not to capture his men. The ultimate goal of any chess game is to capture the enemy’s King. You shouldn’t therefore make your moves in a hurry. Just take your time as it is better to lay one good game than many poor ones in a rush, each quarter.
