The king can not put himself into check. An opposing piece doesn't have to actually fly across the board and kill the king; that would be a different game. So no, the prohibition against the K placing himself into check is absolute. Hope that helped. I'm sure someone else will also have a good go at explaining it to you. It's kind of a regular several times a year thread (probably more, but that's all I see).
Checkmate or not?
Thanks. Thought it might be and tried searching. Hate being that person who asks the question that's been answerd 20 times. Found some close results but not quite what I was looking for. Having read rules and not seeing quite that, and having no idea how to search for it, came up pretty much empty.
In that case, still your king would be removed from the board first. That's probably the best way of explaining this; a pinned piece can still be involved in checkmate because if the king were to move to one of the squares it guards, it would capture the opponent's king before the broken pin would have its effect.
Thanks. Thought it might be and tried searching. Hate being that person who asks the question that's been answerd 20 times. Found some close results but not quite what I was looking for. Having read rules and not seeing quite that, and having no idea how to search for it, came up pretty much empty.
FIDE rules of chess Article 3.1.3.......
"A piece is considered to attack a square even if this piece is constrained from moving to that square because it would then leave or place the king of its own colour under attack."
That's an interesting dilemma. One answer is the one Baddogno gave. Rules are rules. So it's checkmate, since the king cannot put himself in check, even if he is being checked by a piece that cannot legally move.
But couldn't the rules be improved? If the queen can't move, then it's not a genuine threat, right? It's a kind of "faux check". Why should the king worry about a bogus check? Surely we should let him move in that circumstance!
In older variants of the game, which were played until the king was removed from the board, the rules permitted the distracted player to put their own king in check. It turns out, however, that this difference in rules cannot be used tactically to help you to escape defeat (unless your opponent is asleep). That's because the old rules "cancel themselves out" in the scenario you describe. They let you move your king (putting him in check), but they ALSO let your opponent move his queen (putting *his* king in check) to remove your king from the board! Game over, you lose, before you can finish off your opponent's (now checked) king. (see Wildekaart's answer above).
In essence, the old rules led to the same outcomes as the new, provided the players were alert. Every game just lasted one turn longer, since the checkmate was merely the preamble to the coup de grâce.
Can a piece that cannot legally move because it will put its own king in check put the opposing king in check.
For example, Whites king is in check and all possible moves keep the king in check. But one of those moves puts him in line with blacks queen. Problem is black queen cant legally move since it would put the black king in check. Can the white king move in line with the black queen orr is it checkmate?