How to Hunt Down a King!

"I like to grasp the initiative and not give my opponent peace of mind." ~Mikhail Tal, Former World Chess Champion

In every game a chess player plays, there can only be three outcomes. A glorious win, a peaceful draw, or a brutal defeat. I prefer to go straight for the jugular or die trying. Of course, there are grey areas like violent games that settle in a draw, shameful, barely-got-away wins, and throwaway losses, but all of this vanishes in a King hunt, also known as a Kingside Attack. (can also be queenside though if the king castled queenside). It's decisive that way.

A kingside attack fills you with elation. You make straight for the opponent's king and start hurling various mating threats at it. You can feel your opponent's fear. Run, little king, run. If the king starts running and you pursue it, your attack now evolves into a king hunt.
On the off chance that the king gets away, you do deflate, but herein lies the catch. If a king gets away, it gets away! Don't pursue it any further and recklessly lose all of your pieces. Start afresh. readjust your plan and what you aim to achieve with what you have. 

Successful kingside attacks may or may not require sacrifices. Sacrifices do have a certain finesse. It's like casting a bet. It either works out, or it doesn't. Thus, they require lots of calculation. Unless you're Tal. He would just play and play and calculate later! His sacrifices were so intense he practically scared the opponent's pieces off the board. 

Here are some examples of Kingside attacks:
Attack #1: GM Jobava, Baadur vs GM Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar. 1/2-1/2

This game is an example of a kingside attack that evolved into a king hunt.

Seize the initiative!

(this game ends in a draw, but it does not end here! Just a diagram bug that displays the result prematurely)

Brilliantly done! Now Black can continue on his attack. This is truly where the king hunt begins, with all of Black's pieces assaulting the queenside, making a beeline for the king. Let's proceed.

The conclusion

A fighting draw! You may be wondering why I chose a draw for the first game of this article. My answer is that the result doesn't matter in this article, the spirit of the hunt is what I'm looking to demonstrate and this game does it perfectly. We can take away from this game that while sacrifices are good, don't give away all of your pieces, because you still require them to mate the king.

Attack #2: FWCC, GM Mikhail Tal vs GM Jon S Speelman

This game is more of a kingside barrage rather than plainly an attack! It's not a hunt, it's an assault as Tal didn't let the king run away!

This is the key moment. How will you attack the Black King?

White's break that resulted in Black's losing

Quite a remarkable move I must say. 

In case you're wondering where Black went wrong, it was playing 11...Nbd5. It gave White the opportunity to play c4 with tempo and it just wasted a move. After that, 13...0-0 sealed Black's doom. Black should have put off castling as long as possible and played on the queenside. 

I hope you enjoyed this article and learned how to attack an opponent king and hunt it down!