Check and Checkmate

Your main objective when playing a game of chess is to checkmate your opponent's king. If you manage to checkmate your opponents king, then you win the game! On the other hand, if your opponent checkmates your king, then you lose the game.

To learn what checkmate is, you first need to know what it means to be in check.

Your king is in check if it could be captured by your opponent on the next move.

So, if your opponent is attacking your king, then your king is in check, and you must take your king out of check immediately. If there is no move that you can play that takes your king out of check, then it is checkmated, the game is over, and you lose.

You are not allowed to move your own king into check, that is an illegal move. And if your king is in check, you can only play those moves that take your king out of check. You are not allowed to leave your king in check if there are moves you can play that take your king out of chech.

Now you will learn how to take your king out of check. There are a number of different ways which may or may not be all possible

You may be able to capture the enemy piece that is attacking your king. You may be able to move your king to another square that is not being attacked. You may be able to move another of your pieces to an empty square between your king and the attacking piece, thus cutting off the attack. The first method is probably the best as you can capture an enemy piece and come out of check at the same time. However, if you are playing a good opponent, then it is unlikely that your will be able to do this very often! The second method is probably the most common method of coming out of check. It only works though, if there are squares around the king to which it can safely move. Often, you will keep many of your own pieces around the king for protection, however they also reduce the numer of squares that you king can move to if in check. The third method will not work if there are 2 pieces attacking your king at once, which is possible! You may be able to block one attack but you cannot block two attacks at the same time. Also, if the attacking piece is a knight, you cannot block the attack and so cannot use the third method.

This is why your king is your most valuable piece as the fate of your king often determines whether you win or lose the game. It does not matter if you have a lot more pieces on the board and you think that you are winning - if your opponent checkmtes your king, then you lose the game!

<>This is why castling is such a useful move as it allows you to move you king to a safer position far from the center of the board and enemy attacks