Chess pieces: The King

The King, some love 'em and some want to chop off his head; some want to steal his spouse and some want to snatch him from the board and throw him across the room, Aljechin-style. But before we decide what to do with him, let's take a short look on the monarch's duties (he actually serves a purpose!):

The King is the most valuable piece, as this lazy potatoe determines if you are going to lose or not, depending on who checkmates who, preferably you mating your opponent. But of course, sometimes we play a good game against someone who busts out all the top, engine approved, moves and we simply can't win - the 50 move rule then helps us to make peace with the other King. Well, and then there is the EricRosen way, that is to get stalemated, a very enjoyable process, as you don't lose. On the other hand, if you are being tricked in the sense that your opponent gets stalemated, that will be the worst game of your life... for now at least. There's always the possibility to hang mate in one when there are invisible Bishops lurking enough squares away - curse you, invisible Bishop-Queen batteries!

Now, while the King is a very valuable piece, he can only move one square at a time - but can do so in all directions. This means, that he can escape Bishop very easily, but is not so fortunate when other enemy pieces are around. You can compare him with someone who simply is too lazy to even try to escape - I guess being royal made him that way. But more on his family, a very public family I might add, later.

Another notable thing is, that the King can not be captured, seperating his royal laziness from all the other pieces for no apparent reasons. Though this may be to the delight of all those who fear for the pride of every chessmen (get lost, weird looking Horse that looks straight into my every fiber of my being), to beginners this may pose a problem, but we will all learn about it eventually. Hey, at least you can knock him over a couple o' times!

Now, instead of the usual thing, you know, being cautious that the enemies don't get ya, the King has the advantage of having an alarm like thing going on: To protect our one and only King, we will notice that another piece could capture him, being warned either through a loud yelling "CHECK!!!", a not so loud "You're in check", a fierce look into the eyes before your Opponent hits the clock very quietly (this usually shows that you are, in fact, playing chess and not lending money to someone who tries to get you signing a weird paper), and online your King will be highlighted in red color, or as I choose to believe he starts to blush for causing all the hassle in the first place.

While in check, you have to do everything possible to get your King to safety, whatever that means. Usually it results in the King stepping out of check or another piece movin' inbetween the source of the check and his lazy highness. The King thus causes problems among his people, as some are used as literal body shields, but this does not concern the King, who, on a somewhat regular basis, sacrifices his fellow countrymen in order to mate his distant relative, who is in another castle.

And while talking about castles, we should talk about castling: The King, as the only piece capable of doing that (well, not really as the involved piece does so too and the weird Horse figure's entire job revolves around that too): The King, who can move just one square at a time (there needs to be some hidden meaning behing that!), is capable of jumping over a tower (rookie mistake, as the King isn't a Knight, who, as it turns out, is in fact just the WorkHorse of the Knight) and can, apparently, lift said tower over himself to the square next to it. Does this imply that the King has superpowers but doesn't use them for the benefit of his people? Or does this imply that even brickhouses step aside when seeing the royalty? One is only left to wonder...

Because the King is so special, it can not capture pieces defended by other pieces. It can also not approach the other King - there has to be at least one square between the Kings, and if it is merely symbolically, it shows that the King REALLY doesn't want to talk to his rival monarch (though he still wants to mate him - somewhat contradicting and confusing, isn't it?).

To at least show somwhat the King's symbolism on and over the board, he makes the long (or short, who really knows?) journey to one of the center squares to show who won (or didn't lose). The King put on e4 and d5 signalizes the victory of the white side. On d4 and e5 it signalizes the victory of the black side. And Kings on n e4 and e5 are there to signalize a mutual agreement of peace - I mean a draw.

Now, where does the King's family come in, the royals? Well, at first we have to locate them in their castle: There is the King's wife, the Queen, who isn't as valuable as the King, but is better at doing his job - better by a landslide! The Queen can move like a King, but also trave much much further than he can (maybe to get away from him, or maybe she doesn't trust him anymore and thus he can only move very, very slowly). Then, we have the Bishops, who commit crimes in a distant part of the board but are looked up to in their kingdom. And then we have all the other stuff, the Knights, the Rooks, the weird shaped peasants who are just there to run a marathon and, well, that's it, they aren't royal per se (though they sure seem to be all relatives!).

But why? Why do we still use a King in chess? We have e.p., so why not start a revolution to abolish monarchy as a whole? I mean, given that a pawn can race to the end of the board and become royal (look - he truly is a Queen!), why can't a pawn race to the end and become a lazy royal (like in Antichess, where no one is royal and everyone's just waiting to be captured)? Why can't we have election, with each of the pieces voting for the president or prime minister or chancellor or whatever have you? Well, I have a theory: It is way too complex for a cassical game, for a game that has been around for centuries and has seen the rise of monarchies and the fall of others. Thus, why bother changing the name to the new boss, if he just appears to be the same as the old boss, only difference being that he shouldn't be as lazy and is voted (hopefully)? And besides, it seems like there have been attempts to modernize the King, some chessmen come with a King, who doesn't have a crown on top, but instead a ball (it takes balls of wood to pull that off - pun definetely intended). But maybe it is indeed nice to have at least one monarch, one thing from a more romantic (and more ancient) time and space - after all, this King can't misuse his power that much (as we influence his every action!), so... maybe the King is just right as he is.

With that being said, I think we have had a nice introduction to the King, chess's most valuable piece (and probably it's laziest too!). Well, that settles it then, I guess. Until next time, when we will cover the story of a simple peasant who was lucky enough to rise in the ranks and become a big role on the board. But that's next time, not this time!