In chess, particularly in endgames, a key square (also known as a critical square) is a square such that if a player's king can occupy it, he can force some gain such as the promotion of a pawn or the capture of an opponent's pawn. Key squares are useful mostly in endgames involving only kings and pawns. In the king and pawn versus king endgame, the key squares depend on the position of the pawn and are easy to determine. Some more complex positions have easily determined key squares while other positions have harder-to-determine key squares. Some positions have key squares for both White and Black.
Read more about Key Square: King and Pawn Versus King, Blocked Pawns, Example With A Protected Passed Pawn, Example With More Pawns, Any Key Square By Any Route
Famous quotes containing the words key and/or square:
“Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.”
—Bible: New Testament Jesus, in Luke, 11:52.
“O for a man who is a man, and, as my neighbor says, has a bone in his back which you cannot pass your hand through! Our statistics are at fault: the population has been returned too large. How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)