Chess Pieces: Names, Setup and Values
In the second stage, your child meets all the chess pieces: learns to recognize them, set them up before a game and compare their strength. How each piece moves comes in the following stages. The stage is made up of short videos, explanations and 75 exercises on an interactive board.
What’s in this stage
- What are the chess pieces called — 15 exercises
- How to set up the chess pieces — 12 exercises
- How much are chess pieces worth — 10 exercises
- Which pieces equal a rook or a queen — 7 exercises
- Which is stronger: comparing sets of pieces — 14 exercises
- Test yourself: exercises on everything you’ve learned — 17 exercises
Total: 75 exercises
What are the chess pieces called
Each player has eight pieces (a king, a queen, two rooks, two bishops and two knights) and eight pawns. White’s pieces are light, Black’s are dark. The most important piece is the king, and each side has only one.
How to set up the chess pieces
The pieces stand on the outermost ranks: White on the 1st, Black on the 8th, with the pawns in front of them on the 2nd and 7th. The rooks go in the corners, the knights next to them, then the bishops, with the queen and king in the middle. The queen goes on a square of her own color: the white queen on d1, the black queen on d8. The kings stand on e1 and e8.
How much are chess pieces worth
The strength of the pieces is usually measured in pawns: a knight and a bishop are worth 3 pawns each, a rook 5 and a queen 9. Knights and bishops are called minor pieces; rooks and queens are major pieces. The king has no value in pawns: it can never be traded, and checkmating it ends the game.
Which pieces equal a rook or a queen
These numbers add up to sets of equal value: a rook equals a minor piece plus two pawns, and a queen equals a rook, a minor piece and a pawn, or three minor pieces. Counting this way helps you see whether a trade is worth it.
Which is stronger: comparing sets of pieces
You can compare not just single pieces but whole groups. By pawn count, two rooks (10) are stronger than a queen (9), and a knight plus a bishop (6) are stronger than a rook (5).
Test yourself: exercises on everything you’ve learned
A mix of exercises on every topic in this stage, plus the squares and lines of the board from Stage 1. Next: how each piece moves.