

If played right, a pawn can even checkmate the king! Pawns can also be promoted (see below) if they reach the eighth (or first) rank. Pawns may seem insignificant, but they can be great for trapping an opponent when sacrificed to capture a more valuable piece.Rooks are strong and have a long range of movement.
#Chess pieces names and moves full
However, many novice players often underestimate bishops and do not make full use of them. Bishops tend to be excellent in an open position.Their pattern of movement is often missed and confusing to novice players. Knights are excellent for surprise attacks and forks.She is considered to be the most valuable, next to the king. The queen combines the power of a bishop and a rook in one piece. The queen is the most versatile piece and is the most useful for supporting pieces, and often used for forking (attacking two or more pieces at once).The king is valuable and must be protected.Remember the main points of each piece.A check that occurs as a result of an opponent's move must be resolved immediately, and checkmate (when your king has no place to move safely) loses the game. It is an illegal move for a player to move his own king into check (a check is when the king could be captured on the next move but still has an option of escape). He is the unit you do not want to lose at all cost but is never actually captured. The king: He can only move one space each turn in any direction and captures in the same manner.She can move either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally by any number of spaces and capture from any of those directions. The queen: She is the most powerful piece and can usually be identified by her feminine crown.Since it can only move diagonally, one of your bishops stays on the light-squares (and is called the "light-squared bishop") while the other stays on the dark-squares (and is called the "dark-squared bishop"). The bishop: It can only move diagonally, but can move an unlimited amount of spaces in that direction.However, the knight only captures an enemy piece if it is in the space where it settles. The knight is the only piece that can jump over pieces (of either color). It moves in 'L' shapes that can be two spaces horizontally then one space vertically, or one space horizontally then two spaces vertically. The knight: It's represented by a horse and is the most complicated of the pieces.


It can move horizontally or vertically as many spaces as are available. The rook: Sometimes called a "castle" (though rook is more common to avoid confusion with the "castling" move, see below), the rook looks like a small tower.When a pawn reaches the eighth rank (for White) or first rank (for Black) they are "promoted" into another piece (see below). The pawn is the only piece that cannot move backwards and is also the only piece that captures in a way that is different from how it normally moves. Pawns capture pieces situated one space diagonally in front. Pawns cannot move forward if they are blocked by an enemy piece nor can they capture pieces directly ahead of them. On its initial move, it can move forward one or two vacant spaces, but it is only allowed to move forward one vacant space afterwards. The pawn: The most basic piece in the game (you have 8 of them).Here are the names of every piece and how they move (with a few exceptions, that will be covered in a bit):
