King

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The King is the most important piece in chess, since it is the object of the game to checkmate the opponent's king. Each side has exactly one king. Despite his importance, the king is not the most powerfull piece and can only move one step in all eight directions if the target square is not occupied by an own piece and not controlled by any opponent piece. A special kind of move involving king and rook from their initial position and may occur only once in a game is castling. The closest distance between both kings origins along a rank or file is the so called opposition with a Manhattan-distance of two.

=King Topics=
 * Castling
 * Corresponding Squares
 * Check
 * Checkmate
 * King Centralization
 * King Pawn Tropism
 * King Pattern
 * King Piece Tropism
 * King Safety
 * Opposition
 * Stalemate

=Chess Programs=
 * Arasan
 * Monarch
 * Rex
 * The King
 * Usurpator

=External Links=
 * King (chess) from Wikipedia
 * Soft Machine - Kings and Queens 1971, YouTube Video
 * Lineup: Mike Ratledge, Hugh Hopper, Robert Wyatt, Elton Dean and Mark Charig, Nick Evans

=References=

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