The King Walk

A chess master must have various instruments. One of the chess masters' instruments is the king walk.

We shall be studying the best king walks for inspiration and to learn.

There are two types of king walk: The positional king walk and the defensive king walk (more of a king run!).

1. Positional king walks are when the opponents pieces are completely dominated. But we need one last push. And that push can come from the king, who walks across the board and nobly executes the opponent.

2. The defensive king walk (run) is when the king has to run because they are being attacked. If the attack is proper than this should not end well and the king run is nothing to be proud about. If the attack is improper than the king run looks more noble, but it was because of the other person's improper attack, not because of the person's skill.

Positional king walks are far more impressive as they are rarer and require positional skill and domination. They are quite rare and special in chess as they require certain conditions. A king walk cannot happen by itself, the proper environment must be set beforehand: Positional domination of the opponents pieces, allowing the king to pass through in complete safety.

Here we will naturally look at the cooler positional king walk.

1. Nigel Short vs Jan Timman, 1991

Timman played the Alekhine Defense as Black and fell into a passive position with a weak kingside. Short then took control of the d-file and the dark squares on the kingside. Timman's only defense was lining up his queen and bishop against g2 to stop the knight from coming to g5 with an unstoppable attack. Short's pieces controlled the board, but the knockout still needed to be found:

2. Alexander Alekhine vs Fred Dewhirst Yates, 1922

Yates weakened their dark squares with f5 and b5. Alekhine then traded into a good knight vs bad bishop endgame. The rooks and the knight were in their optimal squares, but there was one piece that needed to be improved for the knockout blow:

3. Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian vs Wolfgang Unzicker, 1960

Unzicker weakened their c5 square due to having to develop the c8 bishop in a uncomfortable opening. Petrosian then took control of the c file. Then he came up with a brilliant plan to make further progress.

4. Robert James Fischer vs Pal Benko, 1965 (Analysis)

Benko gave Fischer the bishop pair in a Ruy Lopez. Fischer then developed a dangerous kingside initiative. Benko gave up a pawn in a difficult position to try to get counterplay but fell into a positional bind. Benko then resigned after making a blunder in a losing position. However, this position contains a hidden gem. What if Benko didn't blunder?

Outro

King walks are cool.
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