We should kill the king
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1 day ago
0
#2
I agree all of the pieces get killed even his own wife can get killed. He doesn’t get killed just sent away and on a royal time out he should be killed as well as his army.
Also, eliminate stalemate.
1 day ago
0
#5
You guys mean to say that you should checkmate the opposing king, right?
Stormy-Boy-2007 wrote:
Also, eliminate stalemate.
That's the spirit!
The king in chess isn't just protected, he's sacred. You can't move him into danger. If he's trapped but not in check? Not a win. Not a capture. Just a pat on the back and "we'll call it a draw".
That's not strategy, it's storytelling, a leftover myth from when kings were considered untouchable. Even in games, because saying "I killed your king" might upset a power-mad narcissist. The rules bend to spare him. Everyone else dies, but the king? He gets a timeout.
It's brainwashing, plain and simple. Kill the king. Every game. No exceptions.
5 hrs ago
0
#7
One house rule I sometimes use (and like), is doing check and checkmate like normal, but, after someone calls checkmate and wins, the checkmated player (just for fun) makes their move anyway and lets the winner take their King.
None of the pieces in chess, including the king, get killed. They get captured. Once they are captured, they leave the board (or go to jail so to speak). They don't get killed. Checkmate is the king being captured (not killed).
Because checkmate is the end of the game, there is no reason to "kill" or even remove the king. He's captured by definition (there is no legal defense preventing his capture) so there is no reason to remove him from the board.
If it makes you feel better after the game is over (checkmate) and the opponent forfeits his turn you can take two turns in a row. The first move would be the checkmating move, the second move would be to move your checkmating piece to where the king is. Capture and remove the king. Nobody will care because the game is already over.
Ever notice how in chess, we never actually kill the king? The whole board can be a bloodbath of obliterated pieces, pawns tossed aside like cannon fodder. But the king? He gets surrounded, gently informed of his loss, and sent away. It’s a royal timeout. That’s not a design flaw, it’s propaganda. A holdover from a time when people believed kings were untouchable, that spills over into modern-day golden parachutes.
In early versions of the game, like chaturanga and shatranji, the king could be captured. “Checkmate” originally meant “the king is dead.” But as chess made its way into feudal Europe, suddenly, the king became too sacred to kill. The rules changed to protect his majesty, reflecting a society that bowed before divine right and couldn’t stomach the idea of a toppled crown, even in a board game. That attitude stuck, and we’ve been playing by those imperial rules, letting them fester in our minds, ever since.
It’s time to change that. Kill the king. Not out of spite, but principle, because there’s subtle psychological power in a game. Forget this aristocratic nonsense. Let every game be a reminder that no one is above consequences.