It was great to see the turnout at our first homeschool chess club meeting for the 2009-10 school year. For those who want to dig into some more chess strategy between now and the next meeting, I’m planning to do a weekly blog post with some simple beginner strategies and tactics.
This week’s lesson is the relative value of the pieces.
Often you can tell who’s winning a chess game by adding up the value of the chess pieces left on the board. An often-used rule of thumb is:
- Pawn = 1 point
- Knight = 3 points
- Bishop = 3 points
- Rook = 5 points
- Queen = 9 points
(The King is a special case, we don’t count his point value. Think of him as being worth 1000 points, because if you lose him, the game’s over. )
Look at the following position and let’s see who’s winning:
Diagram 1. White to move
Black has 3 pawns, a knight, and a bishop. That’s 9 points. White has only a bishop and 4 pawns. That’s 7 points. Black is winning.
By “winning” I mean if both sides play perfectly, Black will probably win. In games among masters, simply being ahead 1 point (one pawn) is often enough to ensure victory, although it may be a long grind. In games among amateurs, usually being ahead by 3 points is enough for the stronger side to prevail. Keep that in mind as you become stronger, you will need to be more careful about losing pawns and pieces.
It’s kind of like basketball. If your opponents don’t have a lot of skills, then often you can get away with sloppy dribbling and passing but still win. But against a skilled team, you’d have to work harder. And against the pros, you’d never be able to get away with even the slightest hesitation — they’d steal the ball or intercept your passes unless you execute perfectly.
Keeping track of what pieces have been captured, and who’s winning the point count, is a crucial fundamental skill as you grow and become a stronger chess player.
Here’s a harder one. What about this position?
Diagram 2. White to move
There’s a lot more stuff on the board, so it’s faster if we just compare the differences between the White and Black armies. Both sides have a queen. Both sides have both bishops. White has 2 rooks and Black only has 1, while Black has 2 knights to White’s 1. So that puts White ahead by 2 points (Rook is stronger than Knight by 2 points). Is that all? Nope, we forgot to count the pawns. White has 7 but Black only 6. So White is ahead by another point. That makes the score +3 in White’s favor.
(Does this mean Black is doomed in this position? Hardly. Actually I chose this position from a well-analyzed opening line in the Latvian Gambit, just to prove that the point-count doesn’t always tell the whole story. In this position, Black is behind in material – the point count – but he has a dangerous attack brewing. This kind of situation happens a lot in chess. The point count tells us White should be winning, assuming he doesn’t get checkmated anytime soon! Remember how I said the king is worth 1000 points? Black decided it was worth giving up a few points to put some heat on White’s king. It’s situations like this that make chess so much fun.
Why is 1 point – one measly pawn – often enough to win?
Diagram 3. White to play
Because white can push that measly pawn all the way down to make a queen! After which it’ll be checkmate in about 7 moves.
Have fun until next week!
