- This article uses algebraic notation to describe chess moves.
The pawn (♙♟) is the weakest and most numerous piece
in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the second rank from the view of the player. In algebraic
notation the white pawns start on a2, b2, c2, ..., h2, while the black pawns start on a7, b7, c7, ..., h7.
Pawns are differentiated by the files on which they currently stand. For example,
one speaks of "white's f-pawn" or, less commonly, "white's king's bishop's pawn" (using descriptive notation). It is also common to refer to a rook pawn, meaning any pawn on
the a-file or h-file, a knight pawn (on the b- or g-file), a bishop pawn (on the c- or f-file), a queen's
pawn (on the d-file), a king's pawn (on the e-file), and a central pawn (on either the d- or e-file).
As pawns differ so much from other pieces, the usage of the word pieces in chess literature usually excludes the pawns,
although this distinction between "pieces" and "pawns" is not found in the official
rules.
Movement
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Initial placement of the pawns.
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Pawn movement. The pawn can move to the square in
front if itself. A pawn on its starting rank has the option of moving two squares.
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Pawns are unusual in movement and use. Unlike all the other pieces, pawns may not move backwards. Normally a pawn moves by
advancing a single square, but the first time each pawn is moved from its initial position, it has the option to advance two
squares. Pawns may not use the initial two-square advance to jump over an occupied square, or to capture. Any piece directly in
front of a pawn, friend or foe, blocks its advance. In the diagram at right, the pawn on c4 may move to c5, while the pawn on e2
may move to either e3 or e4.
Capturing
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| The white pawn at d5 may capture either the black
rook at c6 or the black knight at e6, but not the bishop at d6, which instead blocks its straight way forward.
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Unlike other pieces, the pawn does not capture in the same way as it moves. A pawn captures diagonally, one square forward and
to the left or right. In the diagram to the left, the white pawn may capture either the black rook or the black knight.
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| En passant capture, assuming that the black
pawn has just moved from c7 to c5. The white pawn moves to the c6 square and the black pawn is removed.
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An even more unusual move is the en passant capture. This arises when a pawn uses
its initial-move option to advance two squares instead of one, and in so doing passes over a square that is attacked by an enemy
pawn. That enemy pawn, which would have been able to capture the moving pawn had it advanced only one square, is entitled to
capture the moving pawn "in passing" as if it had advanced only one square. The capturing pawn moves into the empty square
over which the moving pawn moved, and the moving pawn is removed from the board. In the diagram at right, the black pawn has just
moved c7 to c5, so the white pawn may capture it by moving from d5 to c6. The option to capture en passant must be
exercised on the move immediately following the double-square pawn advance, or it is lost and may not be made later. The en
passant move was added to the pawn's repertoire in the late thirteenth century to compensate for the then newly added two-square
initial move rule. Without en passant, a pawn could simply march past squares guarded by opposing pawns; en passant preserves the
restrictive ability of pawns that have reached the fifth rank.
Promotion
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A pawn that advances all the way to the opposite side of the board (the opposing player's first rank) is promoted to another piece of that player's choice of a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same
color. The pawn is immediately (before the opposing player's next move) replaced by the new piece.
The choice of promotion is not limited to captured pieces. It is both legal and possible for one player to
simultaneously have as many as ten knights, ten bishops, ten rooks or nine queens. While this extreme would almost never occur in
practice, in game eleven of their 1927 world championship match, José Raúl
Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine each had two queens in play at once. While
some finer sets do include an extra queen of each color, most standard chess sets do not come with additional pieces, so the
physical piece used to replace a promoted pawn is usually one that was previously captured. When the correct piece is not
available, some substitute is used: a second queen is often indicated by inverting a previously captured rook. This issue does
not arise in computer chess.
Promotion is often called "queening", because the piece chosen is nearly always a queen. When some other piece is chosen it is
known as "underpromotion" and the piece selected is most often a knight used to execute a forced mate or a fork giving the player a net increase in material compared to promoting to a queen. Underpromotion is also
used in situations where promoting to a queen would give instant stalemate and the promotion
cannot be deferred until this situation has ceased.
Strategy
The pawn structure mostly determines the strategic flavor of a game. While
other pieces can usually be regrouped more favorably if they are temporarily badly placed, a poorly placed pawn cannot retreat to
a more favorable position.
