This chess YouTuber (an International Master) supports a change to the rules: basically, that the King can be removed from the board. Specifically, if you and I are playing and you move a piece that reveals a check on your King, well, too bad so sad, you just lost – as opposed to FIDE rules that say you’ve simply made an illegal move. Similarly, move your King into Check and, well, too bad so sad, you just lost – again, as opposed to FIDE rules that simply say you’ve made an illegal move.
I rather like this idea and I’m not clear on why FIDE (or whomever) has deemed these moves illegal for the past couple of hundred years. Any ideas?
I agree with you. The “the King is never captured” rule is based on archaic societal principles which are now obsolete. It’s worth noting that almost every variant on chess, even variants as trivial as shorter time constraints, does away with the rule, and allows ending your turn in check (which results in a loss if your opponent notices and takes advantage of it).
Such a rule change wouldn’t be completely without consequence, as it would remove stalemate as a condition (unless you made a specific rule to cover that, contrary to the spirit of the rules change). But a game ending in stalemate is extremely rare, anyway, and one might argue that if it does, it ought to be a win for the player in the superior position anyway.
One makes the King another Queen, but losing it still ends the game. No checking. A variant on this, the King moves like a Queen or a Knight. Again, lose the King lose the game. I think I’ve seen these variants called Battle Chess most often.
In some speed chess games the King can be captured. This was semi-common in the 80s among High School players, playing for fun to blow off steam.
There is Siamese Chess (name might be inappropriate these days, not sure). Usually played with clocks set for a shortish time, no more than 10 minutes. You play in teams of 2 or more and alternate colors. When you take a piece from your opponent, you can give it a team mate of the appropriate color to use.
There is off course 3 dimensional chess (3 boards) and whatever the variant Star Trek came up with.
Mostly have fun and let FIDE continue with their rules they’ve codify.
I was gonna say, not uncommon in less formal games of chess. For awhile, I had thought this was a universally recognized rule in speed chess, but I guess it’s only when playing “street rules.”
I don’t really see a need to change it, nor do I see a need to change the rules on stalemate either. I think those are both fun quirks of the game. Stalemate at least keeps you on your toes in an overwhelmingly winning position. I love seeing players blunder a superior position that way.
What I’ve always understood is that the King CAN be captured, but never is, because capture ends the game. The standard convention simply transfers the end of the game to checkmate, which–by definition–is a situation wherein the King cannot avoid being captured if the game continued to play out.
In standard chess, the object is not to capture your opponent’s king, but to put your opponent’s king in a position where it will be captured and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. To change this would change the flavor of the game, in a subtle but arguably important way.
Another way to look at it is that the standard rule reduces the chance that a game will end with someone doing something really dumb. Which is arguably a good thing because the most satisfying chess games are the ones that end with someone doing something really clever.
When I taught children, I taught them that the object of the game is to capture your opponent’s king. A few lessons later we would circle back to “you don’t actually capture the king – once he’s in a position where he can’t avoid capture, it’s checkmate…” I figured that opening the basic-play lessons with “put your opponent’s king into a position where he can’t avoid capture” was a bit too … heady for 5th graders.
Perhaps - and it must be extremely rare - if the King makes it to the opposite 8th rank it can be Queen’d or at least have the same powers as a Queen? Or perhaps that player just wins outright.
That would be a huge variant. In endgames, it’s already common for kings to be all over the board. And it’d be even more common if players were specifically trying for it. If “promoting” the King gave such a huge reward, you’d never see any game end any other way.
Except that stalemate is also a situation where the King would not be able to avoid capture if the game continued to play out.
By the way, in case anyone’s confused, “stalemate” is not synonymous with “draw”. A stalemate in chess (under the standard rules) does result in a draw, but it’s not the only way, or even the most common, for a draw to occur. Most often, a draw occurs by both players mutually agreeing to it, and can also happen (if either player calls it) when the same board position occurs three times in the same game, or when the game goes a sufficient number of moves without any captures or pawn moves, or when one player demonstrates that neither player has sufficient material to make a checkmate possible.
Maybe not common, but I wouldn’t really characterize it as “extremely rare.” If you get to an endgame, there’s a reasonable chance a king ends up on the other side. And if it were a rule that you’d win the game or get queen powers, it would happen a lot more often.
I wasn’t being (too) serious. I reckoned that for the King to make it to the 8th rank it’d have to have some pawn cover and the pawn would be queened.
I can imagine how it’d be possible for a king to be out on the 6th or 7th rank without some cover. If it’s a pawn - there’s the potential Queen if it’s allowed to happen.
My grandson, who is ten, plays a treacherous king variation. He says that in the real world if a king were trapped and could escape by killing his own knight and occupying its place he certainly would. The treacherous king is allowed to capture its own pieces as if they were opposing ones.
As a mild hijack, I once came up with a variant played on a 10x10 board. Each player got two additional pieces (and two additional pawns) called a Prince. A
Prince would be placed between the King and the Bishop on one side and the Queen and the Bishop on the other. Princes could move 3 spaces in any direction, essentially making them short-range Queens.
Plenty of kids start before 5, but it is not really the normal, but by age 8 should be pretty simple for most kids. So 5th grade they should be ready to learn the full game without question.
My son had some fairly bad ADHD and he stilled learned all the rules by 3rd or 4th grade.
I hate to write this and will be mocked for it, but my oldest sister taught me when I was 4. Setting me down the path to geekdom early. I excelled at Math & chess but could barely talk and remained behind on reading until the 6th grade.