The King
The king has the smallest move in chess and the only rule that overrides everything else: it may never stand on a square an enemy piece attacks. The board below enforces that, and tells you which piece is doing the forbidding.
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The king moves one square in any direction: up, down, sideways or diagonally. Eight squares from the middle, five from an edge, three from a corner. It captures the same way, onto any of those eight squares.
Then comes the rule that makes the piece what it is: the king may never finish its move on a square an enemy piece attacks. Not "should not" - may not. A move into check is not a legal move, so it is not in the list of things you can do.
Here is a king with a black rook standing right next to it. Most of its squares are poisoned. One move is not.
The rook on f2 is attacking half the squares around your king - and it has nobody defending it. Deal with it.
The board refused three of those with a reason rather than a red flash, because the reason is the rule. And notice which move it allowed: taking the rook. A king is not a fragile piece. It is an ordinary attacking piece with one very strict condition, and an undefended piece standing next to it is simply lunch.
A defended piece is a different story
Swap that lone rook for two rooks defending each other and the capture vanishes - not because it is risky, but because it is illegal. Taking a defended piece would put the king on a square the defender attacks, and that is the one thing it may never do.
This is worth saying plainly, because it is the source of most confusion about the king:
| the piece next to your king | can the king take it? |
|---|---|
| undefended | yes, exactly like any other capture |
| defended by anything at all | no - the move is illegal, not just bad |
Two kings can never touch
Every king attacks the eight squares around it, and no king may move onto an attacked square. Put the two facts together and you get the rule that runs every endgame: the kings can never stand next to each other, so each one takes three squares away from the other from a distance.
Here are two kings two squares apart. Five of the white king's eight moves are legal. Find them.
Tap every square this king may move to. Three of its eight are missing, and the reason is standing on d5.
Those three forbidden squares are not a curiosity. Taking squares away from the enemy king at a distance is how a lone king and a queen deliver mate, how a king and pawn beats a bare king, and what players mean by the opposition: standing directly opposite the other king, two squares away, so that whichever way it steps you can step with it.
Why it has no value
Every other piece has a number: pawn 1, knight and bishop 3, rook 5, queen 9. The king has none, and the reason is not that it is priceless in some poetic sense. It is that a value is a trading number - it tells you what to swap a piece for - and the king can never be swapped for anything. It is never captured, either: the game stops at checkmate, one move before.
In fighting strength it is worth about four points once the queens come off, which is more than a bishop. That is a genuine endgame weapon and the reason the same piece you spent thirty moves hiding suddenly marches into the centre. It is also why castling exists - the one move in chess that puts the king somewhere safe and brings a rook into the game at the same time.
When it has nowhere to go
Two of the most important words in chess are just this rule running out of road:
- Checkmate - the king is attacked, and no legal move exists that stops it being attacked. The game ends and the attacker wins.
- Stalemate - the king is not attacked, but every move it has would put it on an attacked square, and nothing else can move either. The game ends in a draw, which is the single most painful thing that can happen to a winning position.
The difference between winning and drawing there is one word - whether the king is currently in check - and nothing else at all.
Try it
The rook on a1 is checking your king along the first rank. Get out of it.
Common questions
- How does a king move in chess?
- One square in any direction - straight or diagonal, eight squares from the middle of the board, three from a corner. It may capture an enemy piece standing on one of those squares, with one condition attached to everything it does: it may never finish on a square an enemy piece attacks.
- Can a king move into check?
- No, and this is the one rule with no exceptions in the whole game. A move that would leave your own king attacked is not a legal move at all - not a bad move, not a losing move, simply not available. That is why a king can be surrounded by enemy pieces and still have nowhere to go.
- Can a king capture a piece?
- Yes, exactly like any other piece, on any of the eight squares next to it - provided the piece it takes is not defended. If another enemy piece is guarding the square, capturing would leave the king on an attacked square, which makes the capture illegal rather than merely unwise.
- Can two kings stand next to each other?
- Never. Each king attacks all eight squares around it, so moving next to the enemy king would be moving into check. The practical effect is that the two kings can never touch, and that fact is the engine of nearly every king-and-pawn endgame.
- Is the king ever captured?
- No. The game ends at checkmate - the moment the king is attacked and no legal move gets it out - so the capture itself never happens on the board. That is also why the king has no point value: it can never be traded, so there is nothing to compare it to.
- Is the king a strong piece?
- In the endgame, genuinely - a centralised king is worth roughly four points in fighting strength and walks through positions where a rook has nothing to do. In the middlegame it is a liability that has to hide, which is exactly why castling exists.
