The Six Chess Pieces
Each player begins with 16 pieces: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights, and eight pawns. The goal is to checkmate the opponent's king — place it under attack with no legal escape. Every piece contributes to that aim in a different way.
King ♔
Starting position: e1 (White) and e8 (Black), on the central square of its own colour side.
Movement: One square in any direction — horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The king can also castle once per game with an unmoved rook, sliding two squares toward it while the rook jumps to the adjacent square on the other side.
Value: Infinite — the game ends when the king is mated.
Strategic role: In the middlegame the king is vulnerable and must be kept safe, typically behind a pawn shield after castling. In the endgame, with fewer pieces on the board, the king becomes an active fighter. Advancing the king early is one of the most common mistakes beginners make.
Queen ♕
Starting position: d1 (White) and d8 (Black), on the square matching its own colour.
Movement: Any number of squares in any direction — combining the powers of the rook and bishop in a single piece.
Value: 9 pawns.
Strategic role: The queen is the most powerful piece on the board. She applies pressure at range, supports attacks on the king, and can create threats across multiple areas simultaneously. Despite her power, premature queen development is a beginner error: the queen is easily driven back by minor pieces, wasting tempo.
Rook ♖
Starting position: a1, h1 (White) and a8, h8 (Black) — the corner squares.
Movement: Any number of squares horizontally or vertically.
Value: 5 pawns.
Strategic role: Rooks are most powerful on open files — columns with no pawns blocking them. Doubling rooks on an open file, or placing them on the seventh rank (attacking the opponent's pawns from behind), are classic rook manoeuvres. Because rooks need open lines to function, they typically come into play later than bishops and knights.
Bishop ♗
Starting position: c1, f1 (White) and c8, f8 (Black) — beside the knights.
Movement: Any number of squares diagonally. Each bishop is permanently confined to squares of one colour.
Value: 3 pawns.
Strategic role: Bishops are long-range pieces that thrive in open positions with unobstructed diagonals. A bishop hemmed in by its own pawns is called a "bad bishop." Two bishops working together — the bishop pair — are a powerful advantage in open or semi-open positions, controlling both coloured diagonals simultaneously.
Knight ♘
Starting position: b1, g1 (White) and b8, g8 (Black) — beside the bishops.
Movement: In an L-shape — two squares in one direction and one square perpendicular. The knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces.
Value: 3 pawns.
Strategic role: Knights are close-range pieces that excel in closed positions where bishops are restricted. A knight posted on a strong central square — an outpost, where it cannot be attacked by an enemy pawn — can dominate an entire game. Knights decrease in value as the board empties; bishops tend to improve in endgames.
Pawn ♙
Starting position: The entire second rank for White (a2–h2) and seventh rank for Black (a7–h7).
Movement: One square forward. On its first move, a pawn may advance two squares. Pawns capture diagonally forward, one square. A pawn that reaches the opponent's back rank promotes — it must be exchanged for a queen, rook, bishop, or knight (almost always a queen).
Value: 1 pawn (the baseline unit).
Strategic role: Pawns are both the least valuable and, collectively, the most important pieces. Pawn structure — the arrangement of pawns across the board — shapes where pieces can and cannot go. Passed pawns (with no enemy pawns blocking their path to promotion), connected pawns, and pawn majorities are central themes in chess strategy.
Why Piece Recognition Matters: The Staunton Design
Before 1849, chess sets came in an enormous variety of styles — decorative, cultural, elaborate — with little standardisation. In a competitive game, misidentifying a piece could cost the match. The Staunton chess set, created by Jaques of London and endorsed by champion Howard Staunton, solved this with instantly distinguishable silhouettes for every piece.
Jaques of London, the company that manufactured and sold the original Staunton set from 1849, gave each piece a unique visual identity:
- King: A cross on top of a crown — authority and finality
- Queen: A coronet topped with a ball — elegance with power
- Bishop: A mitre with a distinctive diagonal cut — recognisable from any angle
- Knight: A sculpted horse head — the only figurative piece, unmistakable in silhouette
- Rook: A castle battlement tower — solid, architectural, immediately clear
- Pawn: A round ball on a tapered stem — simple, consistent, never confused with anything else
This design was so effective that FIDE, the international chess federation, requires all tournament sets to conform to Staunton proportions. In 175 years, no better system has been devised. The 1849 origin of the Staunton set remains one of the most significant moments in the history of the game.
Piece Activity and Development
Knowing how each piece moves is necessary but not sufficient. A chess piece sitting on its starting square contributes nothing to the position. Development — moving pieces from their starting squares to active positions — is one of the most important concepts in the opening phase of the game.
The principles are straightforward: develop knights and bishops before rooks and queens; control the centre with pawns and pieces; castle early to connect your rooks and protect your king. A player who develops all their pieces while the opponent's remain on the back rank will almost always win the initiative.
Piece activity measures how many squares a piece controls and how much influence it exerts. A rook on an open file is active; a rook behind a blocked pawn chain is passive. A bishop with a clear diagonal is active; a bishop blocked by its own pawns is passive. Strong players consistently reposition their pieces toward active squares, even when no immediate tactical opportunity is visible. See chess tactics and chess openings for how this principle applies from move one.
Piece Coordination
Individual piece strength matters less than how pieces work together. The queen and rook working on the same file form a battery. A knight and bishop covering adjacent squares control more of the board than either does alone. Two rooks on the seventh rank, coordinated, can devastate a kingside position even against a well-fortified king.
The deepest coordination principle is the piece triangle: every attacking combination of two or more pieces is harder to defend against than a single piece threatening the same squares. This is why sacrificing material to open lines — giving up a rook for a bishop to expose the king — can win decisively. The material count matters less than the coordination of the remaining pieces.
Learning to see your pieces as a coordinated army, rather than individual units acting independently, is the shift that separates improving players from beginners.
Jaques of London — Making Chess Sets Since 1849
Every piece described on this page has a physical form in the original Staunton chess set, manufactured by Jaques of London from 1849. The cross-crowned king, the coronet queen, the mitre bishop, the horse-head knight, the castle rook, and the round-topped pawn — these designs were not arbitrary. They were the result of deliberate thought about how to make six pieces instantly distinguishable at a glance, under tournament conditions. Jaques still makes Staunton sets to the original proportions, in weighted wood, for players who want to hold the design that changed the game.
Shop Staunton Chess Sets →Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is the most powerful piece in chess?
The queen is the most powerful piece in chess, worth approximately 9 pawns. She combines the movement of the rook and bishop, able to move any number of squares in any direction — horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. The queen can threaten multiple areas of the board simultaneously, making her the centrepiece of most attacking combinations. Losing the queen early in a game is almost always decisive, unless compensated by an immediate or forced checkmate.
Q: How much is each chess piece worth?
The standard point values are: queen = 9, rook = 5, bishop = 3, knight = 3, pawn = 1. The king has no numeric value because the game ends when the king is checkmated. These values are guidelines, not absolutes. A bishop or knight can be worth far more than three pawns if it occupies a dominant outpost or its bishop pair advantage is decisive. Positional considerations — open files, pawn structure, king safety — always modify raw material counts.
Q: Which chess pieces can jump over other pieces?
Only the knight can jump over other pieces. It moves in an L-shape — two squares in one direction and one square perpendicular — and leaps directly to its destination regardless of what stands between. This unique ability makes the knight particularly valuable in closed positions where other pieces cannot penetrate. All other pieces — queen, rook, bishop, king, and pawn — are blocked by any intervening piece on their path and cannot pass through occupied squares.
Q: What does the king do in chess?
The king is the object of the entire game — the piece each player must protect and the piece each player tries to checkmate. It moves one square in any direction and can castle once per game with an unmoved rook, sliding two squares toward it as the rook vaults to the adjacent square. In the middlegame the king is typically passive and sheltered behind pawns after castling. In the endgame, with fewer pieces threatening it, the king becomes an active fighting piece: advancing toward the centre, supporting passed pawns, and contesting key squares directly.