The king is the most important piece in chess-lose it and the game is over. The loss of the king is called checkmate. This is because checkmate occurs when the king is in check and cannot move out of check. A stalemate is a drawn game. A stalemate occurs when three

requirements are met. The first is the king must not be in check. The second is the king must

not be able to move to another square. This happens when the squares available to the king

are either blocked or under attack by an enemy piece. The third requirement is all the pieces

of the player must not be able to move or capture its opponent's pieces. The stalemate is achieved if all the pieces except the king are gone. One example of a stalemate position is the queen of the opponent on the seventh rank, sixth file and king of player achieving stalemate on the eighth rank, eighth file (corner square) with no other pieces except the opponent's king on

the board.

Another important aspect of the king is opposition. The opposition is taken by moving the king to a square that is separated from the opponent's king an odd number of squares from the other king in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal direction. The usual opposition is one square between the kings in a vertical, horizontal or diagonal direction. Both kings are on the same color square if they are in opposition. Opposition is usually a very important part of the endgame. The endgame usually starts when most of the pieces are off the board and only a few pawns are left. Some of the more common endgames are rook versus rook, bishop versus bishop, and bishop versus knight. There are also several pawns left on both sides. Taking the opposition against the opponent's king is often the decisive move when there are only kings and pawns left. The king usually stops king and pawn if it can take the opposition before the opposing king does. In rook pawn endings, the king without the pawn draws if it can get in front of the pawn before the other king prohibits it.

Another kind of opposition is opposition against the knight. It is taken by moving the king an odd number of squares a diagonal distance from the opponent's knight. This makes it much harder for the knight to check the king. It will take the knight about seven moves to reach the king when the diagonal opposition is taken.

Castling is important because it puts the king in safety at the side of the board and develops the rook. The king needs at least a knight on the bishop three square to protect it after castling. Castling can be done either on the kingside or queenside. Castling kingside is more common than castling queenside. Also castling queenside is not theoretically safe until the king is moved to the queen knight's square. Castling is done by moving the king two squares toward the rook

the king is castling with. One requirement when castling is there must not be any pieces between the king and rook the king is castling with. Also, the king cannot move through or into check. The third requirement is the rook must not have been moved before castling.

Another kind of opposition for the king that works against two pawns blocking each other is equivalent to the move for a knight. The king that moves to a square that would attack the enemy king if it were a knight has the knight opposition. This can force the other player to move its king away from the pawn, thereby allowing the opponent to capture the pawn.

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