Games - Pawn

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	Games - Pawn

The pawn (♙♟) is the weakest and most numerous piece in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly 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 in which they currently stand, for example one speaks of "white's f-pawn". Sometimes, however, pawns are still referred to using descriptive notation, e.g. "white's king's bishop's pawn". It is also common to refer to a rook pawn, meaning any pawn on the a file or h file; a knight pawn, any pawn on the b file or g file; a bishop pawn, which is any pawn on the c or f file, a queen's pawn (on the d file), and a king's pawn (on the e file). Also, a central pawn is a pawn on either the d or e file.

Movement

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. 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

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. Any piece directly in front of a pawn, friend or foe, blocks its advance.

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 repertoir 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

Finally, 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. The pawn is immediately (before the opposing player's next move) replaced by a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color, even if the original piece is on the board. Thus, you could have two queens, three rooks, etc. 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 usually a knight. This will typically be done only if this enables a forced mate.

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. The choice of promotion, however is not limited to captured pieces. It is perfectly acceptable for one player to simultaneously have as many as ten knights or ten bishops or ten rooks or nine queens; this extreme would almost never occur in practice, but in game eleven of their 1927 world championship match, José Raúl Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine did each have two queens in play at once. When the correct piece is not available, some substitute is used: a second queen is often indicated by inverting a previously captured rook. (Some finer sets do include an extra queen of each color.) In computer chess, of course, this issue does not arise.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Pawn (chess) ]

Games - Pawn

Movement

Capturing

Promotion

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