Piece Values

Piece Values refer to – generally speaking – how valuable pieces are. All the pieces: the Pawns, Bishops, Knights, Rooks, Queens, And Kings: have numerical values assigned to generally reflect the strength of that piece. These are only guidelines, but helpful guidelines nonetheless for the beginning player.

Pawns. Value: 1

• Pawns are in a category of their own, because they are unique in the fact that they start off as the lowly “foot troops,” but have the potential to transform into any other piece (apart from the king, of course).
• The Pawns are considered to be worth 1 point, but if they manage to promote, they can turn into any other piece (apart from the King), thus changing their value!

Minor Pieces. Value: 3

• Bishops and Knights are in this category. Each side starts off with 4 minor pieces.
• Trivia: In the tournament-professional chess scene, Bishops are often regarded as better than Knights: some books even assign the Bishop a numerical value of 3.25 or 3.5. However, for the purposes of this writing, both are considered to be worth 3 points.
  This is because when players start out, everyone is afraid of the tricky knight!

Major Pieces. Value(s): 5 and 9

• The Rooks and Queens are in this category. Each side starts off with 3 major pieces.
• The Rooks are considered to be worth 5 points, and the Queen is considered to be worth 9 points.

King. Value: Infinite!

• Remember, checkmating the King is the goal of the game. If you lose this, then you lose the game!
• Trivia: in the endgame (we’ll cover that later), the King is generally considered to be worth about 3 points in strength.

Now that you know the approximate values of the pieces, and how pieces are categorized. Now, you be getting a slight idea of how a typical chess game might progress.