Talk:Pawn (chess)

old talk

These diagrams need to be standardized. --malathion ^talk 23:48, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Pawn promotion

6.6.4 PAWN promotion: On reaching the last rank, a pawn must be immediately exchanged, as part of the same move, for a queen, a rook, a bishop, or a knight of the same color as the pawn, at the player's choice and without taking into account the other pieces still remaining on the chessboard. This exchanging of a pawn is called 'promotion' and the action of the promoted piece is immediate.

"A queen, a rook, a bishop, or a knight". Not a king! -- Curps 11:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Use of animated images

I believe that the article, in fact all articles, are better off without animated images. In chess articles, there is no need for them, since a diagram with arrows can illustrate moves quite well. Wikipedia doesn't need distractions like this. --Yath 21:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

In matter of fact, I strongly believe in the use of animated ilustration in an electronic Encyclopedia like this one, and your point about being distracted by this kind of image it's a sort of POV, in fact no one else made an observation like this one before. Jfreyre

I've often thought there very much should be animations on the chess articles, but on the other hand I think it would be more useful if there were a way for the reader to control them, and I don't think this is really feasible. For now it's probably best to leave things as is. --Jammoe 22:10, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

on many browsers you can press escape to stop all animated gifs Skullers (talk) 08:12, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Pawn movement.

"Pawns may not use the initial two-square advance to jump over an occupied square, but it can be used to capture." What?!? I've never, ever, ever, ever heard this, or seen it. Pawns capturing straight ahead? Clarify? Fix it? What? --Jammoe 22:12, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

That was added on March 9, 2007 by somewho made only that edit. It was either vandalism or another case of people thinking they know something editing the article. It is one of the "benefits" of the "anyone can edit" policy. I'll fix it. 02:47, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Promote to pawn.

may be i'm wrong but I heard that you can claim for a pawn when it reaches the 8th rank...so the pawn gets back to the original square..for example if you promote in d8 it gets back to d2, this would be illegal if d2 it's occupied.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.19.89.23 (talk) 20:51, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

No such thing. The actual rule is quoted under #Pawn promotion above. -- Jao (talk) 21:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Also see promotion (chess) and Rules of chess#Movement, the part about Pawns. Bubba73 (talk), 03:06, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

This might be used in a variant of circe chess. GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 04:57, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

En Passant addition to the game

This article contradicts itself regarding when the en passant move was added to the game. The section describing it says late thirteenth century, but the History section says that the double opening move was not added until the 15th century. Can anyone cite references for either date? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.94.117.187 (talk) 06:43, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The rules of chess weren't standardized then - they varied from place to place and time to time. It says in one place that it was introduced in the 13th century but in the 15th century in Europe, which may be true. It may have taken that long for the rule to be adopted in Europe. But can someone check on this? Bubba73 (talk), 16:54, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Trapping pieces using pawn structure

copied from my talk page":

I don't understand why you tagged my statement "a player might have the opportunity to trap an enemy piece using his pawn structure" with "citation needed", saying "this doesn't make much sense to me". How does it not make sense? There's a diagram illustrating it (the Noah's Ark Trap) right there on the page. - furrykef (Talk at me) 13:21, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

It is the part about its weakness being its strength. In almost all cases you would like to exchange a weaker piece for a stronger one. "Citation needed" means that a reference is needed - not a diagram. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 14:11, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Bubba. "Weakness as strength" is confusing, and unnecessarily colorful and enigmatic prose. (For example, it would be no more appropriate to say "a pawn's weakness is also its strength" than to say "a queen's strength is also its weakness", and, we do not describe the queen's power as "counterintuitive".) Also, there are many ways in which a pawn can exert strength -- not just by trapping pieces. (Suggesting the section should either be expanded, or abandoned.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 21:07, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

it is like saying that a rook's strength is that it is weaker than a queen. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 21:59, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad the section is gone. Encyclopedic description of chess pieces should not incorporate "counterintuitive" or riddles. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:52, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, of course the idea that weaker units can be used to attack stronger units is not really counterintuitive. It's pretty obvious, and even beginners frequently delight in "giving check" to the enemy queen with a pawn or minor piece. I thought the wording of the section title and text was rather too zen and mysterious for an encyclopedia article, and I would really prefer that significant additions to chess articles in 2013 be accompanied by a good reference at the time they are installed. Quale (talk) 23:07, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

"Weakness as strength" section

The "Weakness as strength" section is problematic - starting with the title. The sentence about weakness is a strength makes no sense. The rest of the section really has little or nothing to do with the subject of the section. The diagram of the fork and the sentence about the fork doesn't say much. The diagram and sentence about Noah's Arc trap is OK, but it doesn't belong in this section. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 16:21, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

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Organization

I don't believe that the list of chess pieces included in the article should be in the Movement Section. Even then, at a 1024x768 resolution, the reference of the first paragraph seems misleading as shown here with this screenshot, due to the positioning of said list. 108.168.105.54 (talk) 15:48, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion re en passant

It's typically confusing to newcomers, so that s/ be a guide to editing. (E.g. the para size is intimidating; could be reduced by 1/2. The following phrase is unnecessary & potentially confusing, s/b eliminated: en passant preserves the restrictive ability of pawns that have reached the fifth rank.) IHTS (talk) 00:20, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

I got rid of that phrase, and made a few other trims. The last sentence ("Without en passant, a pawn could simply march past squares guarded by opposing pawns.") could be trimmed. The reason for the rule is evident if the reader thinks about it. I see a few other phrases that could be deleted to help get the paragraph down to half of what it was, but those would lose some information which might be helpful to the reader. Willondon (talk) 15:12, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Thx. Have done some add'l. Ok, IHTS (talk) 21:06, 23 December 2016 (UTC)

Re sentence "Without en passant [...]", too trimmed it doesn't make sense. Or optionally it c/ be eliminated. --IHTS (talk) 03:03, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Can a rook pawn become a center pawn, or vice versa etc.?

There are rook pawns, knight pawns, bishop pawns, and center pawns in chess. But the pawns can change their file. It can happen because they capture enemy pieces diagonally. The question is: if, for example, a white originally rook pawn, which started the game on a2, reaches e file, will it remain a rook pawn or become a center one? If it's the former, then it means some Wiki articles have inexactities and should be corrected, e. g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame — Key square — rook pawn — it can originally be a knight, or a bishop pawn etc. However, if it's the latter, then I wonder how the players differentiate between multiple pawns which stand on the same file (how to name them without ambiguity?). E. g. you can call any c or f file pawn "bishop pawn", but there can be more than one pawn on that file at the same time. 89.149.122.128 (talk) 07:02, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

It's the latter. If you need specification, just list the square or perhaps use plain English (something like "the frontmost queen's pawn" if there are two doubled pawns on the d-file). Double sharp (talk) 06:12, 28 May 2018 (UTC)