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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.
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.
The king moves one square in any direction. There is also a special move called castling which moves the king and a rook. The king is the most valuable piece—it is illegal to play any move that puts one's king under attack by an opponent piece. A move that attacks the king must be parried immediately; if this cannot be done, the game is lost.
Some such variants, like Capablanca chess (10×8) or chess on a really big board (16×16), preserve the castling movement of the rooks, meaning that the king moves a different distance along the back rank. In a few variants, most notably Wildebeest chess (11×10), the player may choose to move the king any distance and move the rook accordingly.
The modern rules of chess (and breaking them) are discussed in separate articles, and briefly in the following subsections: Rules of chess – rules governing the play of the game of chess. White and Black in chess – one set of pieces is designated "white" and the other is designated "black". White moves first.
The chess endgame with a king and a pawn versus a king is one of the most important and fundamental endgames, other than the basic checkmates. [1] It is an important endgame for chess players to master, since most other endgames have the potential of reducing to this type of endgame via exchanges of pieces.
A move that is not permitted by the rules of chess. An illegal move discovered during the course of a game must be corrected. [211] illegal position A position in a game that is a consequence of an illegal move or an incorrect starting position; a position that is impossible to reach by any sequence of legal moves. [211] IM
The defending king must also move that way, otherwise he will be forced to give up his rook for the pawn. If the attacking king can penetrate no further because the defending king is in opposition, use tempo moves by the rook up and down the file. Once pawn moves are exhausted, then the defender runs out of options and is in zugzwang.