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The king (♔, ♚) is the most important piece in the game of chess. It may move to any adjoining square; it may also perform, in tandem with the rook , a special move called castling . If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check , and the player must remove the threat of capture immediately.
In chess, particularly in endgames, a key square (also known as a critical square) is a square such that if a player's king can occupy it, he can force some gain such as the promotion of a pawn or the capture of an opponent's pawn. Key squares are useful mostly in endgames involving only kings and pawns.
The king may participate in castling, which is a move consisting of the king moving two squares toward a same-colored rook on the same rank and the rook moving to the square crossed by the king. Castling may only be performed if the king and rook involved are unmoved, if the king is not in check, if the king would not travel through or into ...
The rank is given a number, ranging from 1 to 8, with rank 1 being closest to the player. In 19th century chess literature the first rank is usually called simply the "[piece]'s square", so "K1" ("King One") is called "King's square" (K. Sq.). Some players omitted both the "1" and the "sq", so "Rook to King 1" was written R–K.
Staunton style chess pieces. Left to right: king, rook, queen, pawn, knight, bishop. The rules of chess (also known as the laws of chess) govern the play of the game of chess. Chess is a two-player abstract strategy board game. Each player controls sixteen pieces of six types on a chessboard. Each type of piece moves in a distinct way.
Corresponding squares are pairs of squares such that when a king moves to one square, it forces the opponent's king to occupy the other square in order to hold the position. Corresponding squares usually occur in pawn endgames. The theory of corresponding squares has developed to include complex calculations based on math-like formulas. [106]
Advancing the king's pawn two squares is highly useful because it occupies a center square, attacks the center square d5, and allows the development of White's king's bishop and queen. Chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer said that the King's Pawn Game is "Best by test", [2] and proclaimed that "With 1.e4! I win." [3] [page needed]
In Rome, from the early 17th century until the late 19th century, the rook might be placed on any square up to and including the king's square, and the king might be moved to any square on the other side of the rook. This was called free castling. In the 1811 edition of his chess treatise, Johann Allgaier introduced the 0-0 notation. He ...