In chess, each player has one of two equivalent sets of pieces of different colors. Each set has six types of pieces:

• 1 King
• 1 Queen
• 2 Rooks
• 2 Bishops
• 2 Knights
• 8 Pawns

Note that quite often pawns are not considered pieces.

And each piece moves in a different pattern.

• the rook moves orthogonally to the players (forward, backward, left or right) and any number of squares
• the bishop moves diagonally and any number of squares
• the queen moves orthogonally or diagonally and any number of squares
• the king moves orthogonally or diagonally and only one square at a time
• the knight moves in an "L"-shape (two spaces in one direction and one space orthogonally to it)
• the pawn can only move away one space^* from player that owns it

Other pieces, not used in conventional chess but used in chess variants or certain kinds of chess problems, are known as fairy pieces.

Chess set colors are usually black & white, brown & cream, black & red, or green & white.

Chess pieces used for play are usually 3-D figurines that are taller than they are wide. For example, a set of pieces designed for a board with 2″ (5 cm) squares will typically have a king around 3.75″ (9.5 cm) tall. They are available in a variety of designs, with the most well-known "Staunton design" which is named after Howard Staunton (a 19^th century English chess player) and designed by Nathaniel Cook.

The variation of designs available is broad from highly abstract representations to themed designs such as those which emulate the drawings from the works of Lewis Carroll or modern treatments such as Star Trek or The Simpsons. Themed designs are often intended for display purposes rather than for actual play.

On computers, chess pieces are often 2-D symbols on a 2-D board, although some programs have fancier 3-D graphics engines with more traditional designs of chess pieces. In essence, nearly any object can be used to represent a particular piece, if agreed to by both players.

For games played at the top level, pieces made of wood are common but for lower-level games or very large tournaments, plastic sets are more common. Although the physical color of chess pieces may vary, the lighter color is called "white" while the darker color is called "black."

Some small magnetic sets, designed to be compact and/or for travel, have pieces more like those used in Shogi and Xiangqi — each piece being a similar flat token, with a symbol drawn on it to show which piece it is.

^* the pawn can move one or two spaces if it hasn't moved from its original square.

See also

• Rules of chess
• Lewis chessmen
• Charlemagne chessmen
• Chess piece point value