Talk:King walk

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[edit] King's walk

In English I think this is almost universally called a king's walk. A translation of the notion from Dutch to English might not put the article under its most appropriate title in the English wikipedia. Any thoughts? Quale 20:56, 4 September 2007 (UTC) Forgot to mention that I think another English term sometimes used is "fighting king". Quale 06:31, 5 September 2007 (UTC) Forgot also to mention that this article is well-written and referenced. Kudos. Quale 06:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd heard of a King walk previously of course, but always in the context of a desperate flight from danger (e.g. Topalov's king during Kasparov's immortal game against him in 1999). However, there's a ChessBase article which cites the Short-Timman match as "the most famous example [of a king walk] in [...] recent chess history",[1] so yeah, you're probably right. Looking at the various Google hits, King walk seems the most common term, followed by fighting king, steel king and king's walk. I'll move it over and tweak the page slightly to incorporate this, and the other pages can serve as redirects.

Tsk-tsk, I should have researched this a bit more. After all, the Short-Timman match is among my two or three favourite games ever. Shame on me for not finding that reference earlier... --DeLarge 10:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I think cases such as the Kasparov-Topalov game are usually called a "king hunt", which would probably also make a good article (see List of chess terms#K). "King hunt" even appears in a few references, e.g., articles under that title in The Oxford Companion to Chess, Golombek's Encyclopedia of Chess, and Brace's An Illustrated Dictionary of Chess. Walk/Hunt indicates the in/voluntary nature of the king moves. In any case it appears that steel king is a term that is used, so it deserves a mention and a redirect even if you rename the article. Nice article, btw. I think it's the best new chess article in a while. If you like, feel free to add brief definitions of these terms with links to this page in the List of chess terms article. It may also deserve a mention or a "See also" on the king (chess) page. Quale 11:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, now you mention it that's true about king hunting. It might be a bit harder to write an article about that, since it's less of a novelty to have the king fleeing danger up the board; there might be fewer resources devoted to it. However, I seem to remember Tarrasch deliberately ignoring an easy mate so he could ignominiously hunt Nimzowitch's king during one game? Between that and Topalov I'll see what I can discover. However, I'm on my own in the office just now (there's usually four of us), so I'll probably be short of free time to get this done over the next day or two.

And glad you liked the page. --DeLarge 12:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)