Dear Chess Friends! 

How is it possible to attack the enemy king with your king?

From chess books and coaches, we know that in a chess game we should secure our own king and try to weaken or expose the enemy king.

So, let me explain what I have in mind by saying “attacking moves” with the king. We can divide king moves for attacking purposes into 3 types:

1) Endgame centralizing moves

For example, you have to centralize your king to shoulder the enemy king and may also have some ideas to force the enemy king into a mating net. Look at this position. Here to be able to promote the pawn, White has to activate their king, shoulder the enemy king and at the same time combine the ideas of promotion with mating threats

2) Prophylaxis

When players castled to the opposite sides, their main plans are to initiate the attack to the enemy king and the player who does it faster, usually succeeds. However, it’s very often when to slow down the enemy attack you have to move the king to a safer place. For example, like White played Kb1 in this position in order to prevent complications on the c-file and at the same time continue the attack on the kingside.

3) In order to let other pieces to join the attack

It’s very common when both players castled to the kingside, but one of the players is able to initiate a kingside attack in case if the center is stable. And to make the attack more dangerous you have to join the rooks, that’s why the king usually goes to e2 as it shown in the position below:

Overall, King moves by the first glance can’t help you to succeed with the attack on the enemy king, but if you get deeper into the analysis, you may realize that sometimes they are crucial for the attack and ability to play such moves in time may even decide the game!