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Measuring the Strength of your Army

Wolverhampton Chess Club

The pieces on a chessboard can be roughly matched in strength by 'Pawn units'. This can be used to compare how well you are doing in a chess game.

Every chess piece including the King , may make captures of the opponents pieces on the chessboard.

  • A Queen is worth 9 Pawns
  • A Rook is worth 5 Pawns
  • A Bishop is worth 3 Pawns
  • A Knight is worth 3 Pawns

Using this information helps you to understand how much you have won when you capture a piece, or lost when your pieces are captured .

It should be noted that this is only a rough guide to the value of the various pieces. Sometimes in a game a Knight or even a Pawn may be more valuable than a Queen. This will be discussed further in later sections.