Table of Contents
- General Strategy and Principles
- How Kings Move
- Strategy
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Conclusion
In chess, the King is the most important piece. Without a king, no game of chess is possible. You must protect your king with all of your other pieces.
Kings are also powerful because they can move in any direction on the board, which makes them difficult for other pieces to take down. The drawback is that they, like pawns, can only move one single square each turn. This can present itself for some tricky situations in which they can be trapped. A lot of strategy must go into how the king is played, and how it is protected in order to properly defend it. After all, once a king has been placed in checkmate, the entire game is over.
General Strategy and Principles
In general, there are some principles to guide you on how to use Kings in your strategy. Like all Chess Principles, they can be broken and should not always be followed 100% of the time. The answer always depends on what your opponent plays.
How Kings Move
Kings move as follows: a king moves one space horizontally, one space vertically, or one space diagonally. The king is unable to jump over other chess pieces, but it can attack in any of these directions.
The one exception to this rule is castling, in which a king can switch positions with a rook under the right circumstances as a tactical defensive measure.
Strengths
1. The king is the most powerful piece on the board. It can only move one space at a time, but this gives it the ability to move in any direction on the board. This makes it more difficult for other pieces to attack it.
2. The king can move horizontally or vertically at any point in the game, while other pieces are restricted to one type of movement per turn. This flexibility gives it an advantage when attacking enemy pieces, as well as protecting itself from being attacked by additional enemies.
3. Kings are the only pieces on the board that cannot be taken down with any single move. The opponent must capture a king piece by placing it in a check position, and ensuring that there are no other moves the king can make to escape that check. This requires much more strategy than taking any other type of chess piece.
4. Kings serve as the centerpiece of strategy in a chess game, because everything else in the game revolves around taking down an opposing king.
5. The king controls the king diagonal. If a player gives up his king, it may seem like he gave up on the entire game, since one cannot win without their king.
6. The ability to take a piece by moving in any direction makes kings more useful than pawns in a defensive position. A pawn can only move one square forward each turn or diagonally forward in an attack, but a king can move backwards as a defensive or offensive play.
Weaknesses
1. The king is the most important piece on the board, which makes it an obvious target for your opponent. Not only does your opponent need to win the game by taking out your king, but if you protect it well, they may have a hard time winning at all.
2. The king has a limited range of movement. It can only move horizontally, vertically or diagonally one square per turn, meaning that it is difficult to jump over other pieces in order to take them down.
3. The king can easily be trapped in a checkmate position when an enemy piece moves next to it and makes it subject to capture. It is possible for the king to be captured by a piece while at the same time being checked by another. Although this is rare, it can happen if your opponent plays smartly and protects their pieces well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you win chess if you get your king to the other side?
You do not automatically win the game if your King gets to the other side of the board. Nothing happens, the game continues.
What happens if the king is the last piece?
If both White and Black end up with only their Kings left, the game is automatically a Draw due to insufficient material.
Can Kings kill each other in chess?
Kings cannot capture each other in Chess because a King cannot move to any square around the enemy King as this would put yourself in Check.
Conclusion
Kings are the most important piece in chess, and with good strategy and good protection surrounding it, can be extremely useful to your team. If you want a piece that is hard to kill, but hard to gain the upper hand over, take a king.
Kings in chess are strong due to their flexibility as to where they can move on a turn and the fact that they cannot be taken down without a preliminary check phase. Kings are very effective at protecting themselves through defense and taking down other pieces with this added step.
I hope this guide on how to use Rooks in Chess helped you. If you want to master the use of the other pieces as well, you can read their guides: