What to do when you are being checked in chess?
Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at
11:02 pm
I recently decided to start playing chess. Got down some of the basics, except for the fact that checking confuses me completely. I asked one of my friends, who claimed to have experience. He said that once you are checked, you HAVE to move your king and king only. But I’v played online games that have allowed me to move whatever I want. Are there different ways of playing chess, or is one wrong?
"Check" simply means your king is under attack by an opposing piece. When your king is in check, your next move must be one that removes the threat from your king. You may do this in one of three ways:
1. Move your king so it is no longer being threatened.
2. Capture the opposing piece that is threatening your king.
3. Move a piece between your king and the threatening piece.
Keep in mind that you can never move your king into a threatened square, thus placing your own king in check. If you cannot make a move that removes the threat from your king, this is called a "checkmate". If you are checkmated, you lose, so make sure this doesn’t happen to you! Hope all of this helps. – LJS
Your friend is wrong. Check is simply a warning that your king is in danger of being captured. You do not necessarily have to move your king. The requirement is that you must get your king out of check any legal way possible because if you cannot, it is checkmate. This can be accomplished by blocking or capturing the piece that has placed your king in check, or moving the king. The exception, of course, is when you are in check by the knight. The knight cannot be blocked because it can jump over other pieces. If the knight places you in check you must move the king or capture the knight. You also cannot move a piece that will result in your king being placed in check.
thats a hard one…
your friend is 100% wrong
(option 1) block check
(option 2) remove threat
(option 3) move king….you are NOT allowed to castle
if all 3 options fail? its check-mate
1. Move your king so it is no longer being threatened.
2. Capture the opposing piece that is threatening your king.
3. Move a piece between your king and the threatening piece
It would be simpler if the objective in chess were to capture the enemy king. As soon as he’s captured, you lose. The confusing thing is that the rules do not allow your king to actually be captured, so if you are in a position where you cannot prevent your king’s capture, you are checkmated.
Your friend is wrong (unless you misunderstood what he was saying, and he was referring to the particular situation in your game) because there may (in general) be other ways to avoid capture: capturing the attacking piece, or blocking the attack with a different piece.