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The King is the most important piece on the board. Its ultimate capture is the object of the game.
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Unlike every other piece on the board, the King is prohibited from moving to a square under attack by the enemy.
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It also can perform a special move referred to as castling which will be explained later. For now, we'll just explain how it moves.
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The diagram above indicates all of the moves available for a centralized King on an open board.
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A King may take one "step" in any direction, as long as the space is unoccupied, and not under attack by an enemy piece.
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Because a King can attack as well, we make the following note: Kings can never be next to one another.
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Kings may never appear is any of the arrangements shown above.
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The rule about Kings not entering check is not merely for the King itself. No piece may move in such a way that the King is left in check.
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As shown above, the white Chancellor is in the same file as the black King.
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Therefore, if the black Pawn were to capture the white Queen, the black King would be in check by the white Chancellor.
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Black can't take the white Queen for this reason, no matter how bad he wants to do so.
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In the position shown above, the black King cannot move left or right. The white Rook and Queen control all squares in those files.
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Therefore, the black King can only move vertically down the board from here.
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In this final diagram, the white Knights cover all of the squares surrounding the black King. It cannot move at all. If it were black's turn to move, this would be a stalemate draw.
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