Listing the Chess Pieces (with value, movement…)

Knowing all of the pieces is essential if you’re looking to master the game of chess.

Goal of the Game

A chess game consists of moving the pieces on the chessboard until a player secures a win by executing a checkmate on the opponent’s king.

The Chess Pieces

At the start of the game, each player has 16 white or black pieces. Chess pieces are always referred to as “white” and “black” even if they’re colored differently.

There are 6 types of pieces in chess, each player has a king, a queen, two bishops, two knights, two rooks, and eight pawns.

Here is a list of the chess pieces and how they move:

Image Pieces Movements	Image Pieces Movements	Image Pieces Movements
	King	Moves one square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Moves as many squares as she wants horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Moves as many squares as it wants but only in a diagonal direction. Moves in an “L” shape: can move two squares horizontally or vertically and then one perpendicular square, can also move one square horizontally or vertically and then two perpendicular squares (still an “L” shape, only turned over). Moves as many squares as it wants in a horizontal or vertical direction. Moves one square forward.Can move two squares forward if it hasn’t moved yet during the game.Moves one square diagonally to capture an opponent’s piece.
Moves one square horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
Moves as many squares as she wants horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.
Moves as many squares as it wants but only in a diagonal direction.
Moves in an “L” shape: can move two squares horizontally or vertically and then one perpendicular square, can also move one square horizontally or vertically and then two perpendicular squares (still an “L” shape, only turned over).
Moves as many squares as it wants in a horizontal or vertical direction.
Moves one square forward.Can move two squares forward if it hasn’t moved yet during the game.Moves one square diagonally to capture an opponent’s piece.
	Queen	Move vertically, horizontally and diagonally with no limit on the number of squares.
	Bishops	Move diagonally according to the colour where it was at the beginning of the game and without any limit on the number of squares.
	Knights	Move in an L-shape. Two squares in a horizontal or vertical direction, then one square in a perpendicular direction.
	Rooks	One square in a horizontal or vertical direction, then two squares in a perpendicular direction.
	Pawns	Moves in a horizontal or vertical direction and with no limit to the number of squares.

Pieces That Can Leap Over Others

Generally, the knight is the only chess piece that can leap over another piece; a knight can move in an “L” shape, ignoring any piece between it and its destination.

However, during a special move called “castling”, the rook can also leap over another piece (the king).

Let’s take a look at what castling is.

Castling

Castling is a special move performed by the king and one of the two rooks.

The king moves two squares towards one of the two rooks, and at the same time, the rook moves to the opposite side of the king by leaping over him.

You can see the possible movements of the white king and rook in picture 1, they’re about to execute the castling maneuver. Then you can see in picture 2 that the king is now on the g1 square and the rook is on the f1 square, having performed the castling maneuver.

Values of the Chess Pieces

Every chess piece has the following value:

• Pawn: 1
• Knight: 3
• Bishop: 3
• Rook: 5
• Queen: 9

The king is the only piece that has no value as it cannot be captured.