Pinned Check

In a recent game I played, I was trying desperately to salvage an already awful game. I was able to put enough pressure on the king to make some kind of counterplay, when I stumbled upon this strange little phenomenon.

Perhaps this is fairly obvious to most players, but I had come to the understanding that a King is only in check if it can be attacked by a piece of the opposite color. But in this example, the King cannot take the bishop because it is within range of the knight, even though the knight is pinned to its spot due to the queen. One would imagine that the King could safely take the bishop until the pin was lifted from the Knight, allowing for a strange form of discovered unpinned check, but this is not the case.

Just thought that this was interesting.

Yes the king cannot take the bishop as that would place the king in check even with the pin lifted on the knight the king would still be in check .  Now Since your king is in check and you want to keep black's knight pinned and not give up your queen, you must move the king.  I would think Kf1 would be a good move and since it weakens the bishop by not placing the king between its target squares.

Interesting!

I think white cannot take bishop because the white king would then be the first to die...

If your King can be taken and it is your opponent's move you have made an illegal move.

There was a thread about this yesterday BTW.