The Value of the Chess Pieces
During the beginning of our chess learning experience, we are often taught the following point system:
I believe that simply memorizing this is not enough.
Chess is not won by counting points.
In this lesson, we explore the reason behind the standard chess piece point system. By doing this, we will deepen our understanding of each individual chess piece.
The Attacking Potential of Your Pieces
Attack! Attack! Attack! You cannot win in chess just by defending. Remember, the goal of chess is not to be safe, the goal is to demolish the enemy forces and checkmate his king!
Let us explore one of the two fundamental ideas of chess strategy. Now join me find out the true “value” of the chess pieces.
The Enemy’s side of the Board
Imagine a horizontal dividing line in the middle of the board. Naturally, the side of the board away from you is the enemy’s side. It is the home of his pieces. In order to win, we must learn to attack this side of the board.
A Little Exercise in Chess Strategy
The exercises below is from white’s point of view. Therefore, your side will be from a1 to h4. The enemy’s side (black) will be from a5 to h8.
The Pawn
Looking at just the square of the enemy’s side, where could put a single pawn (in his side) such that it closest to our side while also attacking the most number of squares on the enemy’s side?
(Beginner Hints: Remember, the pawn’s moves is different from how it captures)
The answer is any of the squares with a pawn below (assuming we are “white”).
When we place a pawn in any of these squares, our pawn attacks two squares. Observe that on the edge, our pawn can only attack one square.
Two and one squares, well that’s not really a big deal, right? It is a big deal — because it’s twice as big of an advantage!
The Knight and Bishop
Now let’s do it for our other chess pieces.
Let’s try answering the same questions for the knight and bishop. Where could you place them to attack the most number of squares? (While still considering the squares on the enemy’s side closest to ours)
From now on, let’s call these squares our optimal attacking squares.
(Beginner Hints: The knight moves in an “L-shape” motion. The bishop never leaves it’s color.)
For the Knight:
Placing the knight in any of the circled squares lets it attack six (6) squares in the enemy side.
The circled squares can be called as the knight’s optimal attacking squares.
For the Bishop:
Placing the bishop in either d5 or e5 lets it attack six squares too.
Let’s review how many squares they attack when placed on one of these optimal attacking squares.
The knight attacks a total of six squares in one of its optimal attacking square.
The bishop also attacks six squares.
What can we conclude from this? Both the knight and the bishop can attack three times as much as a pawn! (Remember, a pawn attacks at most two)
The Rook and Queen
In the chess world, the knight and bishop are commonly referred to as the minor pieces. The rook and queen are known as the major pieces.
Continuing our exercise, let’s find out what are the optimal attacking squares for the major pieces.
(Beginner Hints: The rook always move horizontally and vertically. The queen is like a bishop and a rook combined.)
For the Rook: The optimal attacking squares are any of the squares in the fifth rank.
For the Queen: It’s on d5 or e5
Again let’s count the number of squares they can attack.
Here’s a rook on d5.
That’s ten squares for the rook. In other words — five times as much as a pawn!
For the queen we have:
Woah! Yes! Sixteen squares for the lady. In terms of pawns — that would be eight times!
Summary of the Optimal Attacking Squares
Using this exercise, we have identified our optimal attacking square for each piece.
Summarizing our finding we would get the following:
Pawn: 2 Squares
Knight or Bishop: 6 Squares
Rook: 5 Squares
Queen: 16 Squares
The Standard Chess Points for the Pieces
In standard practice, the material value or the “points” earned when capturing a piece is as follows: one (1) point for a pawn, three (3) for a knight or bishop, five (5) for a rook and nine (9) for the queen.
It means everytime you capture an enemy piece, you get a material advantage equal to the number of points designated for each piece. (Of course capturing the king means game over for the other player)
But wait, can you see the similarities between the standard point system and the optimal attacking squares? Here’s a tip: think of the optimal attacking squares in terms of pawns.
A pawn is one pawn, a knight or bishop is three times a pawn, the rook is five times a pawn, and the queen is eight times a pawn.
Actually, the queen kinda get bonus points — that’s why we make the queen worth nine pawns. Bonus point for what you ask? You just need to realize, a queen on an optimal attacking square attacks half of the enemy’s side (16 out of 32 squares). That’s show why the queen is your strongest piece.
Now we have learned why the standard chess points for the pieces makes so much sense.
Conclusions from this Lesson
Aside from learning the value of the pieces, we can draw several conclusions from this lesson:
The Pieces have “Potential” Points
The first conclusion is a warning to you my dear reader. Going back to the exercises we made, you see that we did it on an empty board — without the enemy’s forces.
What this means is that the points for each piece is not absolute. Your opponent will surely try to hinder the reach — the attacking potential of your pieces. In chess, the number of squares attacked by a piece is called it’s activity.
Therefore, during a game, you should strive to maximize your pieces’ activity. The point system is defined in terms of a piece’s potential activity. It is your task to reach this potential. (The reverse is also true — you should hinder your opponent’s activity)
The Optimal Attacking Squares
The second conclusion is that the optimal attacking squares are generally found in the center of the board. The only exception to this is the rook.
Therefore, as a chess player that knows the basics of the value of the pieces, you should try to control the central squares. For these squares are so important — whole chess battles are done to gain an advantage on the center.
In fact the center is so important that centralization is the second fundamental idea of chess strategy.
The next lesson will be about the center of the board. See you there!
End of Lesson
You have reached the end of the lesson “The Real Value of the Pieces”.
Thank you for finishing this lesson.
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