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Chess piece

From left to right: King, Queen, Bishop, Rook, Knight, and Pawn
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From left to right: King, Queen, Bishop, Rook, Knight, and Pawn

In chess, each player has one of two equivalent sets of pieces (each a different color) at the beginning of the game. Each set has six types of pieces, each with its own pattern of movement:

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

Physical chess pieces used to play a game are usually three-dimensional figurines, taller than they are wide (a set of pieces designed for a board with squares two inches wide will typically have a king around 3.75 inches tall). They are available in a variety of designs, with the most usual known as the "Staunton design", named after the 19th century English chess player, Howard Staunton, being designed by Nathaniel Cook. The variation of designs available is broad, such as highly abstract representations, 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 two-dimensional symbols on a 2D board, although some programs have fancier 3D graphics engines with more traditional styles. 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 usual, but for lower-level games or very large tournaments, plastic sets are more normal. 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, 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.


See Also: Lewis chessmen, Charlemagne chessmen , Rules of chess, Chess piece point value



Last updated: 02-24-2005 14:53:12