How a king moves in chess

  The King is the most important piece in the game of chess; making it helpless by means of checkmate is the object of the game. If a player's king is threatened and cannot escape capture, the king is said to be in checkmate, and the player which owns that king loses the game. In a conventional game of chess, White starts with the king in the middle-right of their first rank (between the queen and the king-side bishop). Black starts with the king directly across from the white king. In algebraic notation, the white king starts on e1 and the black king on e8.

  A king can move one square in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally). The exception to this rule is that it may not move onto a square that is threatened by an enemy piece. As with most pieces, it captures by moving onto a square occupied by an enemy piece.

Check and checkmate

  If a player's move places the opponent's king under attack, that king is said to be "in check", and the player in check is required to immediately get the king out of check. There are three possible methods to remove the king from check:

* Physically moving the king to an adjacent non-threatened square

* Interposing a piece between the king in check and the attacking piece ('blocking' a check)

* Capturing the attacking piece

White has 3 ways to get out of check:
- run away (Ke1)
- block (Nd3)
- capture the checking piece (Bxd8)

If none of these three options are possible, the player's king has been checkmated and the player loses the game.

A king can be checkmated by any enemy piece except the other king

Stalemate

A stalemate occurs under a specific set of circumstances:

* The king is not in check

* The player has no legal moves

If this happens, the king is said to have been stalemated and the game ends in a draw. A player who has very little or no chance of winning will often try to place the king in stalemate in order to avoid a loss.