Chess is a strategy game played between two players on a chessboard. A chessboard contains 8x8 black and white squares. This game is believed to be originated in India. A player wins the game when checkmate is declared to the opponent's king.
Each player has 16 pieces. One set in black colour and other in white colour. Following are the chessmen in the game.
King
King is the most important piece in the Chess. If the King is threatened by the opponent's piece, then its called as Check. The next move the player should be removing Check, otherwise the opponent attacks the King and the game is over. When there are multiple checks by the opponent and the king is not able to move anymore to evade the threat, then this situation is called checkmate. There is only one piece of King. The King can move only one square at a time.
Queen
Queen is the most powerful piece in Chess which can move in any direction and any number of squares in that direction. There is only one piece of Queen.
Rook
Rook is placed in the two corner sides of the board. It can move any number of squares at the same time vertically or horizontally. It cannot move diagonally. The top of the piece looks like a tower.
Knight
There are two pieces of Knights used in the game. The Knight is placed between Rook and Bishop. The piece looks like a head of a horse with neck. Knight can move one square vertical and two square horizontal or one square horizontal and two square vertical. In simple words, it can move only in the shape of the letter L.
Bishop
Bishop can move only in a diagonal direction and it cannot move horizontally or vertically. There is one pair of Bishop for one player. One on the white square can move only on white squares and the other on the black square can move only in black squares.
Pawn
There are 8 pieces of Pawn for one player. The pawns are placed on the row in front of the row where king, queen, bishops etc... are placed. A pawn can advance two squares if it is moving for the first time. After that it can move only one square. It cannot move backward. A pawn cannot capture the opponent's piece which is directly in front of it. It can only capture the piece which is found one piece diagonal.