Chess pieces or chessmen are the pieces deployed on a chessboard

Chessboard

A chessboard is the type of checkerboard used in the board game chess, and consists of 64 squares arranged in two alternating colors...

 to play the game of chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

. The pieces vary in abilities, giving them different values in the game. For a standard chess game both players start with:

• 1 king
  King (chess)
  In chess, the king is the most important piece. The object of the game is to trap the opponent's king so that its escape is not possible . If a player's king is threatened with capture, it is said to be in check, and the player must remove the threat of capture on the next move. If this cannot be...
  
  
• 1 queen
  Queen (chess)
  The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...
  
  
• 2 rook
  Rook (chess)
  A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the castle, tower, marquess, rector, and comes...
  
  s
• 2 bishop
  Bishop (chess)
  A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
  
  s
• 2 knight
  Knight (chess)
  The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
  
  s
• 8 pawn
  Pawn (chess)
  The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...
  
  s

Any pawn that reaches the eighth row during the game must be promoted

Promotion (chess)

Promotion is a chess rule describing the transformation of a pawn that reaches its eighth rank into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same color . The new piece replaces the pawn on the same square and is part of the move. Promotion is not limited to pieces that have...

 to become any other piece of the same color except a king.

One side is referred to as "White" and the other as "Black" (see White and Black in chess

White and Black in chess

In chess, the player who moves first is referred to as "White" and the player who moves second is referred to as "Black". Similarly, the pieces that each conducts are called, respectively, "the white pieces" and "the black pieces". The pieces are often not literally white and black, but some...

).