King Held In Center:
Part of the Advanced Beginner's Chess Guide (Section 1)
King Held In Center
- Point Count Chess: King Held In Center [-];
A King can be held in the Center, for example, by an adverse Queen or Bishop attacking down to the 1st Rank of the enemy's camp, crucially between the King and Rook, preventing the King from Castling to (relative) safety, as mocked-up in Diagram 1, below.
Diagram 1: White's King held in the Center
by Black's light-Bishop.
As mentioned above, sometimes the King WANTS to stay in the center. But if he is FORCED to stay in the center, either by check which forces the King to move, or attack on the Rook forcing it to move (and therefore losing the right to castle on that side), or keeping a piece (Knight, Bishop, Rook, Queen) attacking on a square through which the King needs to move to castle (on the Queenside: the Q and QB home squares, and on the Kingside: the KB and KN squares), then subtract the point.
Interactive Examples
Point Count Chess
(Horowitz & Mott-Smith, 1960)
- The Check at R5
- Sacrificing to Hold the King
- NO. 117 ... p170, Giplis v. Klasup, 1954
- NO. 118 ... p171, Najdorf v. Ilivitsky, 1955
- NO. 119 ... p172, Spassky v. Pilnik, 1955
- NO. 119 ... p172, Keres v. Najdorf, 1955
- NO. 119 ... p172, Geller v. Panno, 1955
- Cramping of the Rook
- Voluntary Forfeiture of Castling
Further Reading
Point Count Chess
(Horowitz & Mott-Smith, 1960)
- The King in the Center, (p168)
- The King in the Center SUMMARY, (p175)
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