If the King was a normal piece, what would its value be?

Well, if it's called 'king' it sure is important, therefore it deserves 1000 points. However, since the kings movement is so small, maybe it should be renamed 'peasant' or 'random person' who cannot capture and is worth 0 points and can be promoted into a pawn somehow....

To make everything easier to understand below, lets call the normal king which can castle and be checked 1, and the king which can check and is a normal piece 2.

I think 2 would do almost equally as well as 1 at endgame, since you can't use it to check 1 unless it is guarded or you are sacrificing it. I think it would make a good company for 1 if 1 was castled with 2 by its side to help protect the pawns. I think that 2 should be worth 3 points since it has such small movement but can protect 1 quite well too.

If the K was a regular piece you could use it to checkmate the opposing K, so it has to be worth more than a B or N.  I think 3.5 or 4 is a good value.

while it is possible to mate with a king and a fake king, i am curious if it can be done in all situations.  for instance, if the opposing king was in the center and your two pieces were in one corner, would you ever be able to force the king to the edge where he can be mated.  since it takes the duo twice as many moves to get anywhere, can the opposing king just run around in circles and stay off the edge?

3 ponis maybe

Definitely more than 3. (Two kings of same color can checkmate opponent king while K+N and K+B fail at it.)

What if the king was one of us? Just a slob like one of us... just a stranger sitting on the bus...

in checkers, the most important is taking the jump, not who taking the jump...so neither the king nor the normal pieces can take the jump whichever first, depend on the player... Nox Edge

King is definitely stronger than minor piece, because he covers holes around.

Non-royal version of a King is called "a Man".

IMHO unlike minor piece, Man + own King can checkmate opponent's King in 3 piece endgame.

I estimate Man's strength around 4-5 pawn units (slightly less than Rook).

Yes!

The King is a fighting piece

So you say that the king can only trap a pawn?  A king can trap a knight on the corner, too.

Any other piece can easily outrun the king.  However, this is the same for every other piece.  It is impossible to trap a bishop, rook, or queen with only one piece.  Only a pawn or knight can be trapped with only one piece.

In the position at the right, the king is the only piece (except for the queen) that can trap and attack the knight in a corner.  The bishop is trapping the knight on a8, the knight is trapping the knight on h8, and the rook is trapping the knight on a1.  However, the king is the only piece that is trapping and attacking the knight on h1.  So I don't think the king would have a 0.9/10 for attacking.

I was reading this, and really wondering, what would happen, if both players would have two kings and no queen. Then lets say, one King can be taken and then the second acts like a normal king, with check, mate and stalemate. I think Ill play out some games like that tomorrow, sounds quite funny. Just think of combinations, where you sacrifice a king :)

where's the black king?

3

Depends on position. It could be more valuable then rook if rook has only 1 open file and no entery points, and it could be just a liability so its less valuable then pawn and in fact his value is negative. So from -100 to +7 depending on position.

I guess about 4

About 2. Too limited... A knight or a bishop are obviously stronger, but he's stronger than a pawn.

The crude measurement of piece worth is the number of squares they control (so I hear). I think 4 is quite reasonable... it's power would still increase once the game slows down in the endgame or locked positions, so I could see it being almost as valuable as a rook, but not when opening initiative is required.

See my forum post "Value of the King"

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/value-for-the-king