English Chess Forum

"The king is a strong piece which can look after itself."

"The king is a fighting piece, use it!"

Are these quotations correctly rendered?

Is "strong" Fine and "fighting" Steinitz?

Does anybody know where they were originally spoken or written - and in which language or languages?

JustinHorton wrote: Is "strong" Fine and "fighting" Steinitz?

I thought the concept that the "the King is a strong piece" can be originally attributed to Steinitz. Fine may have said so as well, but if you can trace references to the concept that pre-date Fine, that more or less proves it.

A website about Steinitz believes so, even it also describes the King as fighting.

http://www.wilhelmsteinitz.com/Fighting_King.html

It's true in the ending, less so in the middle-game and untrue in the opening. There are certainly games at amateur level at least where following a Steinitz doctrine in late middle-games leads to disaster. I played a few myself, until I realised that running your king into trouble was just bad.

A similar idea had already been expressed in A new treatise on the game of chess, J. H. Sarratt, published posthumously in 1821.

See page 61 (regarding the endgame):

" ...your King is a most useful Piece, and should be actively brought into play."

Did his 1808 edition contain similar advice? Does Philidor mention the subject?

There is a web site that collects notable quotes but unfortunately it only attributes them to a player without any supporting information, such as when or where they were first recorded.

http://www.chessquotes.com/topic-kings

Indeed, that's kind of why I'm asking.