Chess piece

A chess piece, or chessman, is any of the six different types of movable objects used on a chessboard to play the game of chess.
Number of pieces.
Each player begins with a total of sixteen pieces (but see the subsection below for other usage of the term "piece"). The pieces that belong to each player are distinguished by color. The lighter colored pieces are referred to as "white," and the player that owns them, "White". The darker colored pieces are referred to as "black", and the player that owns them, "Black".
In a standard game, each of the two players begins with the following sixteen pieces:
Usage of the term "piece".
The word "piece" has three meanings, depending on the context. Context should make the intended meaning clear .
Moves of the pieces.
The rules of chess prescribe the types of move a player can make with each type of chess piece. Each piece type moves in a different way. During play, the players take turns moving one of their own chess pieces.
Pieces other than pawns capture in the same way that they move, except for castling. A capturing piece replaces the opponent piece on its square, except for an "en passant" capture by a pawn. Captured pieces are immediately removed from the game. A square may hold only one piece at any given time. Except for castling and the knight's move, no piece may jump over another piece .
Relative value.
The value assigned to a piece attempts to represent the potential strength of the piece in the game. As the game develops, the relative values of the pieces will also change. A bishop positioned to control long, open diagonal spaces is usually more valuable than a knight stuck in a corner. Similar ideas apply to placing rooks on open files and knights on active, . The standard valuation is one point for a pawn, three points for a knight or bishop, five points for a rook, and nine points for a queen . These values are reliable in endgames, particularly with a limited number of pieces. But these values can change dramatically depending on the position, the phase of the game (opening, middle game, endings). A for example, is worth a half a pawn on average . In specific circumstances, the values may be quite different: a knight can be more valuable than a queen in a particular decisive attack.
Historical illustration.
Courier Chess, a predecessor of modern chess, used all six modern chess piece types, plus three additional types of pieces:
Piece names.
The characters implied by pieces' names vary between languages. For example, in many languages, the piece known in English as the "knight" frequently translates as "horse", and the English "bishop" frequently translates as "elephant".