Pawn (chess) Pawn (chess) The pawn (♙,♟) is the most numerous piece in the game of chess, and in most circumstances, also the weakest. It historically represents infantry, or more particularly, armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins a game with eight pawns, one on each square of the immediately in front of the other pieces. (The white pawns start on a2, b2, c2, d2, e2, f2, g2, h2; the black pawns start on a7, b7, c7, d7. e7, f7, g7, h7.) Individual pawns are referred to by the on which they stand. For example, one speaks of "White's f-pawn" or "Black's
First-move advantage in chess the advantage. Black ultimately reached an endgame two pawns up, but White managed to hold a draw in 83 moves. Tal himself lost a famous game as White from a symmetrical position in Tal–Beliavsky, USSR Championship 1974. In chess tournaments and matches, the frequency with which each player receives white and black is an important consideration. In matches, the players' colors in the first game are determined by drawing lots, and alternated thereafter. In round robin tournaments with an odd number of players, each player receives an equal number of whites and blacks; with an even number of players, each