Learn The Pawn Moves For Chess

It's time to go deeper on each topic starting with pawn moves. The chess pawn is the weakest and most common unit, symbolizing infantry, or armed peasants (pike men). And yet they are the backbone of the army, central to all of your plans and schemes. Both players start with eight pawns, lined up on the second rank in front of the pieces.

The origin of most chess pieces are unquestionable, but the pawn's story is vague enough it seems. The term pawn has taken on a number of different meanings in today's world.

Depending on the context the term "pawn" can mean "a person easily controlled" or "a person sacrificed for a more important end".

The chess pawn gets his name from the Old French word "paon" which originates from the Medieval Latin term for foot soldier.

You can see the starting position and moves of the little foot soldier. Each individual pawn on his own is weak and vulnerable. The 8 of them together however have strength in unity and protect their officers as a pawn shell.


Their stature and movement reflects their modest station in the game. But there is a ray of hope for the pawn. Later in the game one or maybe two pawns could achieve promotion.


Even regardless of that the pawn line is an integral part of the chess army. The pawn is sometimes called the soul of chess. The pawns start off lined up on the front row. Just take a look at the diagram for a moment.

The pawn moves only forward. He is the only unit that cannot retreat. On his opening move the pawn can be moved two squares straight ahead, although one square is optional.

The pawn moves from there on only one square at a time. Straight ahead naturally. This is his normal move. He moves differently when capturing as you will see in a few minutes.

Originally the pawn was not allowed to move two squares on the first move but this was introduced in the Middle Ages to speed up the game and it did so dramatically.

When two pawns meet head on along the same file, the result is basically a traffic jam. Neither can move before one of them leaves the file. There's only two ways this can happen.


One of them might capture an enemy piece on an adjacent file. This will take the capturing pawn onto a different file allowing both to move on.


Or else one of the pawns gets captured by a different enemy piece. This clears the path for the surviving one to move.

A pawn does not move in the same way when capturing as he does normally. He is unique in this sense because all of the pieces capture using their standard moves.

When a pawn captures an enemy piece, he does so by moving forward diagonal one square. It can capture opposing pieces in either direction, left or right.

All captures in chess are made by the attacking piece moving from its own square to the one occupied by its victim (en passant the exception).

If a pawn passes an enemy pawn on an adjacent file on it's first move it is vulnerable to the en passant capturing manoeuvre. This move is unique in the game of chess because it is the only instance where a piece is captured on a square it does not occupy!

This rule was introduced to clear up the discrepancy caused by the two square rule for opening moves. That rule made it possible to create a cheap passed pawn by simply waiting for the enemy pawn to enter it's half of the board and then powering past. En passant restored balance to the universe.

In the diagram you can see that White has just played 4.c4 (the pawn was on c2). The d4-pawn can now capture it by 4...dxc3. The whole maneuver has been known to confuse. The option to capture en passant is only available on the very next move. After that the pawn on c4 is safe.

If a pawn should by chance manage to make it to the eighth rank (opponents back row rank) the reward is an exchange for any back row piece except a King. We call this promoting the pawn.


Usually (almost always) a Queen is requested. Except in rare circumstances, it makes little sense to ask for a lesser piece. If a Rook, Knight or Bishop is requested rather than a queen, it is referred to as under-promotion.


Many endgames involve promotion races or a struggle with one side trying to promote and the other trying to prevent the promotion. The outcome of these races or struggles for promotion will decide the result of the game. So pawn promotion is a pivotal part of chess.

And that's all there is to the pawn moves. Go over the page a couple of times if you're not quite sure of everything. Play through the pawn tutorial.

Learn to love the pawns just as Philidor did. You will stand or fall on the strength or weakness of your pawns. They will determine your fate in the game.

Next up in our piece study is the cavalry. As it happens the pawn is often excluded from the description "piece". Many people say only the back row units should be called pieces. Anyway the first of these is the Knight.