Pawn (chess) - Movement

Movement

a b c d e f g h
8 8
7 7
6 6
5 5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
a b c d e f g h
Initial placement of the pawns.
a b c d e f g h
8 8
7 7
6 6
5 5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
a b c d e f g h
Pawn movement: A pawn can move to the square directly in front of itself, if that square is clear. A pawn on its starting rank has the option of moving two squares.
Chess pieces
King
Queen
Rook
Bishop
Knight
Pawn

Pawns are unusual in how they move. Unlike the other pieces, pawns may not move backwards. Normally a pawn moves by advancing a single square, but the first time a pawn is moved, it has the option of advancing two squares. Pawns may not use the initial two-square advance to jump over an occupied square, or to capture. Any piece directly in front of a pawn, friend or foe, blocks its advance. 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.

Read more about this topic:  Pawn (chess)

Famous quotes containing the word movement:

    The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.
    Karl Marx (1818–1883)

    For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities—a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces—a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.
    George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)

    I am haunted by interrupted acts,
    introspective as a leper, enchanted
    by a repulsive clew,
    a gross and fugitive movement of the limbs.
    Is this the love that shook the lights to flame?
    Muriel Rukeyser (1913–1980)