It's an interesting dilemma. You can't ever move into check, so is the black rook able to actually move? If the black rook is pinned then is moving the king into f file really moving into check? I don't think being in a check takes into account whether the offending piece can actually move onto your king, so I think it is in fact illegal. In other words it's irrelevant that the rook is pinned, it's still casting a beam of death down that f file, which your king can not move into.
Questioning the rules
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Yea I thought of it some more and it's true that if we continued with this logic in this mind experiment, the black rook could "slay the white King" on the f file then. At which point you could argue the game is over. Yes the white queen could now "slay the black King" in the next move, but you could argue that the army could not survive for even a second without its King.
A pinned piece loses its freedom to move, but not its realm of influence.
Let's assume it were possible to capture the king: white would capture the queen, then the black rook would capture the king, ending the game immediately. It wouldn't matter that white could also capture the king because the game is over already.
if u think of it like this: without the king, EVERYTHING stops for that side. so black would capture white King first. Then its over for white.
That’s a fun thought experiment! Thanks!
The thing is, the point of the game is to be ABLE to capture the king no matter what, and whoever does it first wins. In this case, if white takes the queen, then the rook will be able to take the white king first, and white loses, so it is not possible to take.
This is going to sound ridiculous, I'm not even new to the game but I found myself questioning the logic of chess rules when solving today's puzzle. In the example here:
The red arrow capture by the white King is illegal because of the black Rook on the f file. But why is it illegal actually? Shouldn't the white King be able to capture the black Queen since the black Rook is pinned to the black King? In theory the black Rook would not be able to "slay the white King". The black Rook's "check" is not a threat.