What is a pawn in chess?

Answer 1

The pawns are the eight small pieces which form a row in front of the major pieces. In the battle analogy (and Chess is a battle) they are the poor bloody infantry who are sent into battle first. A pawn can move only one square forward , or diagonally forward to take another piece. On the first move theyare allowed to move two places forward if desired. This is to speed the game up.
A pawn is a piece on a chess board worth one point. Each side gets 8 pawns. A pawn can only move one square forward at a time, with the exception of it's first move, where it can move up to two squares forward.

A pawn can only capture one square diagonally in front of it. But in the case of 'en passant' where if the pawn is on the fifth rank and an opposing pawn moves two squares forward and ends up on either side of it, then it can capture that pawn as if it only moved one square.

Once a pawn reaches the other side of the board, it may be promoted to any piece of your choosing other than a king or pawn.

Pawns are the fundamental structure of a good chess game and should not be underestimated due to their low value.

Answer 2

This is an interesting question. Actually, there are reasons why it should not be called a "chess piece", but this is rather overly technical. In general, they are all "pieces" when referred to collectively as in "There are 32 pieces in the box." However, in technical descriptions, the term "piece" is sometimes reserved for the pieces on the back ranks, King, Queen, Knights, Bishops and Rooks, while the pawns are called simply "pawns."

Answer 3

Pawns in chess move straight forward (never backward) along the file that they start on. They move one space, except that on their first move they have the option of moving two spaces. Pawns attack and capture on their forward diagonals (one square up and over to either side), so they may by capturing leave their initial file during the game, and continue to move forward on the new file. So it is possible to have two or more pawns on the same file. Pawns cannot move forward to an occupied square.

Promotion

A pawn, on reaching the 8th rank (far side of the board) must be promoted to any major piece except a King. Normally the promotion is to a Queen, and this promotion can be made regardless of whether the player already has one or more queens on the board.

En passant rule

If a player moves a pawn two spaces on its first move, and his opponent has a pawn that attacks the square over which the pawn "passed" (the one-space move), then the opponent may on that move only use his pawn to capture the pawn, as if it had only moved a single space.

(see related link to other chess rules covering pawns)

Answer 4

Pons are usually used to set up formations and get promotions,( where you get the pon to the other side of the board and exchange it for any other piece you want except for king) and to do dirty work like sacraficing them to save the day.

Answer 5

The pawn is allowed to move two (or one) spaces forward on its first move, but only one move on each other. It can not move backwards. It can only capture pieces diagonally, therefore if there is a piece in front of it, the pawn is not allowed to move unless the piece moves out of its way. One more thing is, if the pawn manages to make it across the board it can switch out for any other piece except the king or the pawn itself.

Answer 6

Pawn structure basically refers to a particular way of arrangement of a player's pawns. Definition wise, it sounds too simple, but this is what it basically is about! There are many many books on this topic, and it is a very crucial concept to understand in chess. I will try to give some explanation, which by no means is complete.

Pawn structure is a very important concept in chess, basically because of the following reasons:

1. a pawn can move only one step at a time,

2. once one moves a pawn, it cannot go back!

A wrong pawn move may end up opening diagonals for the opponent's bishop, or may leave holes that the opponent's pieces will occupy at a later stage. This will lead to the opponent controlling many squares, thus giving him/her an advantage.

A good pawn structure is that in which your pieces' mobility isn't obstructed by your own pawns, and also which doesn't have weaknesses that allow the opponent to occupy outposts.

A good pawn structure won't have too many loose ends, in the sense that it generally doesn't contain isolated pawns, or weak base pawns (base pawns are those that support a pawn island).

Of course, all of those that i mentioned above have exceptions; a doubled pawn may turn out to be useful, isolated pawns need not be weaknesses but instead end up deciding the very nature of the game (a classic example is isolated queen pawns in certain openings), and so on, but these are generally exceptions, so they don't have to be dealt with at a basic level while studying pawn structures. But as one progresses in their game, it is useful to understand the exceptions too.

Hope this answer gave some insight into the idea of a pawn structure!:)

Answer 7

The Pawn(s) function as infantry who can be sacrificed to open up an opponent's defenses as well providing a defensive stance or structure .

Answer 8

soldier of course