Learning Chess: Long Live the King!

King safety is one of the most important strategic concerns you will have to deal with while playing chess. After all, if your king is trapped, the result is disastrous - you're checkmated! With that in mind, here are a few tips for keeping your king safe - and how to take advantage if your opponent's king isn't.

Castling: Making a Home for Your King

If I could give just one piece of advice, one nugget of information that would help beginners last longer in their games, it would be this: castle early and often! Castling is the single most important thing you can do to make sure your king is safely placed in the opening. While there are certainly instances when your king is perfectly safe in the center of the board, it is almost always correct - especially for novices - to castle their king as early as possible.

This can be accomplished in as little as four moves. Two common sequences (from white's perspective) that allow castling this quickly are 1. e4 2. Nf3 3. Bc5 (or Bb4), with 0-0 on the following move, or 1. Nf3 2. g3 3. Bg2 4. 0-0. Of course, you shouldn't make these moves blindly; getting your king tucked away safely may be important, but it's rarely worth losing material.

So, how should you proceed if your opponent leaves his or her king sitting in the middle of the board? If you've properly developed your pieces, you should look for a way to decisively attack the enemy king. It may even be worth sacrificing a pawn or two - sometimes even a minor piece - to open up lines of attack. Keep in mind that this attack needs to come quickly, because any delay may allow your opponent to castle, making their king much harder to get to.

Keeping Your King Secure

While castling will definitely help your king's safety, he may still be vulnerable to attack if you're not careful. It is important to make sure your opponent does not open up lines of attack - files or diagonals - toward your king. If your king happens to find itself on one of these open lines, you should try your best to get him off of it, and on to a more secure square.

Likewise, you should try to keep the pawns in front of your castled king as strong as possible. Advancing these pawns is usually a bad idea in the middlegame, as the creation of weak squares in front of your king gives your opponent a nice place to put attacking pieces. If at all possible, you should also avoid capturing with the pawn immediately in front of your king; this creates an open file aiming right for your king, which is virtually an invitation to attack!

As much as you should be seeking to avoid these weaknesses around your own king, you should be seeking to create them for your opponent. Try to induce weaknesses in your opponent's pawns, open lines to the enemy king, and get your pieces in safe squares near him. If you can get enough pieces coordinated near the enemy king and open lines of attack, checkmate will often follow.

Following these hints should help prevent you from losing games to quick checkmates, and also help you recognize when it's time to attack a vulnerable enemy king. Happy hunting!