Pawn

Because endgames are often won by the player who can promote a pawn first, having a passed pawn in an endgame can be decisive – especially a protected passed pawn (a passed pawn that is protected by a pawn).

For example, one speaks of "White's f-pawn" or "Black's b-pawn", or less commonly (using descriptive notation ), "White's king bishop pawn" or "Black's queen knight pawn".

In middlegames and endgames with a passed pawn, Tarrasch's rule states that rooks, both friend and foe of the pawn, are usually strongest behind the pawn rather than in front of it.

Pawn promotion main If a player advances a pawn to its eighth rank, the pawn is then promoted (converted) to a queen, rook, bishop, or knight of the same color at the choice of the player (a queen is usually chosen).

The capturing pawn moves into the empty square over which the moving pawn passed, and the moving pawn is removed from the board.

The diagrams on the right demonstrate an instance of this: if the white pawn moves from a2 to a4, the black pawn on b4 can capture it en passant, moving from b4 to a3 while the white pawn on a4 is removed from the board.

After the first bullet took out the knight, if the second had removed the g-pawn rather than the h-pawn, Charles would be able to mate in ten.

Although both players start with one queen each, a player can promote a pawn to any of several types of pieces, including a queen, when the pawn is moved to the player's furthest rank (the opponent's first rank).

A pawn can capture an enemy piece on either of the two squares diagonally in front of the pawn (but cannot move to those squares if they are vacant).

A pawn captures any opposing piece horizontally or vertically between the square to which the pawn moved and a friendly piece (i.e. there may be no gaps between any of the three pieces).

A player with an unpromoted pawn on every file is therefore unable to drop a pawn anywhere.

En passant captures are indicated by specifying the capturing pawn's file of departure, the "x", the destination square (not the square of the captured pawn), and (optionally) the suffix "e.p." indicating the capture was en passant.

For example, Be5 (move a bishop to e5), Nf3 (move a knight to f3), c5 (move a pawn to c5—no piece letter in the case of pawn moves).

For example, exd5 (pawn on the e-file captures the piece on d5) or exd (pawn on the e-file captures a piece somewhere on the d-file).

If a player moves a pawn to its eighth rank, it cannot be substituted for a different move of the pawn when the player has stopped touching it.

In Japan, the usual symbol for a pawn shop is a circled number seven (7) because "shichi", the Japanese word for seven, sounds similar to the word for "pawn" ( 質 main).

In queenside castling, the king is placed closer to the center and the pawn on the a- file is undefended; the king is thus often moved to the b-file to defend the a-pawn and to move the king away from the center of the board.

In the diagram at right, the black pawn has just moved c7 to c5, so the white pawn may capture it by going from d5 to c6.

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.

In the diagram at right, White has a protected passed pawn on c5 and Black has an outside passed pawn on h5.