King (chess)

White king

Black king

Theking(♔, ♚) is the most importantpiecein the game ofchess.It may move to any adjoining square; it may also perform, in tandem with therook,a special move calledcastling.If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to beincheck,and the player must remove the threat ofcaptureimmediately. If this cannot be done, the king is said to be incheckmate,resulting in a loss for that player. A player cannot make any move that places their own king in check. Despite this, the king can become a strong offensive piece in theendgameor, rarely, themiddlegame.

Inalgebraic notation,the king is abbreviated by the letterKamong English speakers. The white king starts the game on e1; the black king starts on e8. Unlike all other pieces, each player can have only one king, and the kings are never removed from the board during the game.

Placement and movement

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	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Initial placement of the kings

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	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Possible movements of an unhindered king

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The king's movement may be hindered by other pieces. Black's king cannot move to squares under attack by the white bishop, knight, rook, queen, or pawn; White's king cannot move to squares under attack by the black queen.

The white king starts on e1, on the firstfileto the right of thequeenfrom White's perspective. The black king starts on e8, directly across from the white king. Each king starts on a square opposite its own color.

A king can move one square horizontally, vertically, and diagonally unless the square is already occupied by a friendly piece or the move would place the king in check. If the square is occupied by an undefended enemy piece, the king may capture it, removing it from play. Opposing kings may never occupy adjacent squares (seeopposition) to give check, as that would put the moving king in check as well. The king can givediscovered check,however, by unblocking abishop,rook,or queen.

Castling

Main article:Castling

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	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

White has castled kingside (0-0); Black has castled queenside (0-0-0).

The king can make a special move, in conjunction with a rook of the same color, calledcastling.When castling, the king moves two squares horizontally toward one of its rooks, and that rook is placed on the square over which the king crossed.

Castling is permissible under the following conditions:

• Neither the king nor the castling rook have previously moved.
• No squares between the two pieces are occupied.
• The king is not in check.
• None of the squares the king would move across or to are under enemy attack.

Castling with the h-file rook is known ascastling kingsideorshort castling(denoted 0-0 inalgebraic notation), while castling with the a-file rook is known ascastling queensideorlong castling(denoted 0-0-0).

Status in games

Check and checkmate

Main articles:Check (chess)andCheckmate

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	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

Black's king cannot move to squares under attack by the white bishop, knight, queen, or pawn. Since White is checking Black, and Black can neither move, capture the checking piece, nor block the check, Black is checkmated.

A king that is under attack is said to beincheck,and the player in check must immediately remedy the situation. There are three possible ways to remove the king from check:

• The king is moved to an adjacent non-threatened square. A player may not castle to get their king out of check. A king can capture an adjacent enemy piece if that piece is not protected by another enemy piece.
• A piece is interposed between the king and the attacking piece to break the line of threat (not possible when the attacking piece is aknightorpawn,or when indouble check).
• The attacking piece is captured (not possible when in double check, unless the king captures).

If none of the three options are available, the player's king has beencheckmated,and the player loses the game.

In casual games, when placing the opponent's king in check, it is common to announce "check", but this is not required by the rules of chess.

Stalemate

Main article:Stalemate

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	a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h

White to move: White cannot move legally because of the black queen and king. Since the king may not move into check, White is stalemated.

A stalemate occurs when a player, on their turn, has no legal moves, and the player's king is not in check.

If this happens, the king is said to have been stalemated, and the game ends in adraw.A player who has very little or no chance of winning will often, in order to avoid a loss, try to entice the opponent to inadvertently place the player's king in stalemate (seeswindle).

Role in gameplay

In theopeningandmiddlegame,the king will rarely play an active role in the development of an offensive or defensive position. Instead, it will normallycastleand seek safety on the edge of the board behind friendlypawns.In theendgame,however, the king emerges to play an active role as an offensive piece, and can assist in thepromotionof the player's remaining pawns.

It is not meaningful to assign a value to the king relative to the other pieces, as it cannot be captured orexchangedand must be protected at all costs. In this sense, its value could be considered infinite. 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.Emanuel Laskergave it the value of a knight plus apawn(i.e. four points on the scale ofchess piece relative value),though some other theorists evaluate it closer to three points. It is better at defending friendly pawns than the knight is, and it is better at attacking enemy pawns than the bishop is.

History

The Indian chess King represented here by the Maharaja seated upon a tall Elephant in a Howdah

The king's predecessor is the piece of the same name inshatranj.Like the modern king, it is the most important piece in the game and can move to any neighboring square. However, in shatranj, baring the king is a win unless the opponent can do the same immediately afterward; stalemating the king is a win; and castling does not exist.

Name translations

Overview of chess piece names

Language	King	Translation
Afrikaans	KKoning	king
Albanian	MMbreti	king
Arabic	ممَلِك (malik)	king
Azerbaijani	ŞŞah	shah
Armenian	ԱԱրքա (Ark῾a)	king
Basque	EErregea	king
Belarusian(Taraškievica)	Ккароль	king
Bengali	Rরাজা (rājā)	King
Bulgarian	Ццар	tsar
Catalan	Rrei
Chinese	KVương(wáng)	king
Czech	Kkrál	king
Danish	Kkonge	king
Dutch	Kkoning	king
English	Kking
Esperanto	Rreĝo	king
Estonian	Kkuningas	king
Finnish	Kkuningas	king
French	Rroi	king
Galician	Rrei	king
Georgian	მფმეფე (mep'e)	king
German	KKönig	king
Greek	Ρβασιλιάς (vasiliás)	king
Hindi	Rराजा (rājā)	king
Hebrew	ממלך (Melech)	king
Hausa	Ssarki	king
Hungarian	Kkirály	king
Icelandic	Kkóngur	king
Ido	Rrejo	king
Indonesian	Rraja	king
Interslavic	Kkralj	king
Irish	Rrí	king
Italian	Rre	king
Japanese	Kキング (kingu)
Javanese	Rraja	king
Kannada	ರಾರಾಜ (raaja)	king
Kazakh	Крпатша (patşa)	king
Korean	K킹 (king)
Latin	Rrex	king
Latvian	Kkaralis	king
Lithuanian	Kkaralius	king
Lojban	Nanoltrunau	king
Luxembourgish	KKinnek	king
Macedonian	Kкрал	king
Malayalam	Kരാജാവ് (raajavu)	king
Marathi	Rराजा (rājā)	king
Mongolian	Нноён	noyan
Norwegian Bokmål	Kkonge	king
Norwegian Nynorsk	Kkonge	king
Odia	Kରଜା (rôja)	king
Oromo
Persian	ششاه	king
Polish	Kkról	king
Portuguese	Rrei	king
Romanian	Rrege	king
Russian	Кркороль (korol')	king
Scottish Gaelic	Rrigh	king
Serbo-Croatian	Kkralj (Ккраљ)	king
Northern Sotho	КKgoši
Sicilian	Rre	king
Slovak	Kkráľ	king
Slovene	Kkralj	king
Spanish	Rrey	king
Swedish	Kkung	king
Tamil	Kஅரசன் (arasaṉ)	king
Telugu	రాజు (rāju)	king
Thai	ขขุน (khun)	king
Turkish	Ş/Kşah / kral	shah/king
Ukrainian	Kркороль (korol)	king
Urdu	بادشاہ(bādshāh)
Vietnamese	Vvua	king
Welsh	Tteyrn / brenin	lord/king

Unicode

Main article:Chess symbols in Unicode

Unicodedefines three codepoints for a king:

♔U+2654 White Chess King

♚U+265A Black Chess King

🨀U+1FA00 Neutral Chess King

See also

• Bare king
• Chess piece
• Finial– top of king, often a monarch's
• King and pawn versus king endgame
• King's graph
• Mann– the non-royal equivalent piece
• Opposition– technique of king facing king
• Staunton chess set

References

• Barden, Leonard(1980),Play better chess with Leonard Barden,Octopus Books Limited, pp. 9, 11, 12,ISBN0-7064-0967-1
• Brace, Edward R. (1977),An Illustrated Dictionary of Chess,Hamlyn Publishing Group, p. 151,ISBN1-55521-394-4
• Hooper, David;Whyld, Kenneth(1996) [First pub. 1992], "king",The Oxford Companion to Chess(2nd ed.),Oxford University Press,pp. 200–01,ISBN0-19-280049-3
• Lasker, Emanuel(1934),Lasker's Chess Primer,Billings (1988 reprint),ISBN0-7134-6241-8
• Ward, Chris(1996),Endgame Play,Batsford,ISBN0-7134-7920-5
• FIDE Handbook: Laws of Chess

External links

• Fianchetto variation of the King’s Indian DefenceArchived2014-08-05 atarchive.today
• Piececlopedia: Kingby Fergus Duniho andHans Bodlaender,The Chess Variant Pages