The player may promote their piece to any of the four choices whether or not any of the original pieces have been captured. Some people think that a piece must be promoted to a piece that the opponent has captured already, but this is not the case. Thus, many players think of promotion as “queening” (the act of turning a pawn into a queen). It is the player’s choice as to which piece that they promote their pawn too but in the vast majority of cases, they will opt for a queen because this is the most powerful piece on the board. When that pawn reaches the final rank instead of becoming a useless immovable piece on the board, instead, it is “promoted” and the player whose pawn has reached that rank may now replace it with a rook, bishop, knight or queen of the same color. The reason for this is the concept of promotion. This, of course, is no incentive to use your pawns and if the pawn were to become useless – players would be far more cavalier with risk taking and pawns than they are. Thus, a pawn that reached the final rank of the board would become a useless item as it would no longer be able to move. It may advance 1 or 2 squares as its first move and thereafter it may advance either 1 move forward or take another piece 1 diagonal move forward. Yet, the only common arrangement that involves more than 32 pieces is a 32-piece chess set that involves the provision of an extra queen for each side and this is because of the odd chess phenomenon of promoted pawns.Īs you probably already know, a pawn in chess can only move in a forward direction. You may only place 32 pieces on the board (in the arrangement mentioned above) to play a game of standard chess but there’s no rule that says that you can’t have spare pieces, etc.
This also means that there’s no legal requirement for a chess set to only have 32 pieces. The Extra Queens Conundrum: The 34-Piece Chess Set You won’t find these variations used in tournament play because they might confuse players and they want to be able to concentrate on their game rather than on deciphering which piece is which but you’ll certainly find them in use in friendly games throughout the world. We’ve seen variations based on everything from Lord of the Rings to Star Wars when it comes to chess pieces. and even the pawns don’t look like pawns. The author has a rather super set, purchased in Corfu in his youth, where all the pieces are meant to resemble items from Greek mythology – if you know chess, their identities are still quite clear but they aren’t “traditional” rooks, queens, bishops, etc. This is probably quite unfair as they were, in fact, designed by a journalist by the name of Nathaniel Cooke but this is how life often turns out, right?īut there’s no reason that chess sets can’t be made with non-traditional pieces and Staunton sets are far from the only chess sets available to purchase. The traditional chess pieces that are most instantly recognizable to the eye are called “Staunton” pieces and they were named after the English chess master Howard Staunton. The king will normally have a cross on his head and thus is quite easy to distinguish from the queen, which is also, usually, the tallest piece on the board.
The bishops do have a look of priestly vestments, in most sets, but they can easily be identified as the group of 4 pieces that remain once you’ve removed the rooks and knights. The knights are often also called “horses” because they are, normally, depicted as the horses that knights would ride into battle in. The rooks are often also called “castles” because they look, normally, like the turrets found on a traditional castle. Pawns are easy to identify, they will, normally, have a little round polished head (rather like a bald man) and because of their prevalence they are simply to distinguish from the other pieces. These colors are traditionally white and black but there is no rule in chess that requires the pieces to actually be made of white or black materials and as long as one group of pieces is lighter than the other – this is fine. This consists of 16 pawns, 4 rooks, 4 bishops, 4 knights, 2 kings, and 2 queens. There are supposed to be 32 pieces in a chess set. How Many Pieces Are There Supposed To Be In A Chess Set?
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