How pawns move, capture and promote

The pawn is the only piece that can never go back. Every pawn move you make is permanent, so it is worth learning this piece properly.

A pawn moves one square straight forward, onto an empty square.

• White pawns move up the board. Black pawns move down it.
• A pawn can never move backwards.
• A pawn can never move sideways.
• If any piece is standing directly in front of a pawn, the pawn is stuck. It cannot go around it and it cannot jump it.

That last point is the one that catches people out. When an enemy pawn stands directly in front of yours, neither pawn can move again for the rest of the game.

Only on its first move. Every pawn starts on the second rank for White, or the seventh rank for Black. From that square it may step one or two squares forward.

Three things to remember:

1. The double step is available once per pawn, and only from its starting square.
2. Both squares must be empty. A pawn cannot jump over a piece sitting on the square in front of it.
3. Once a pawn has moved at all, it is one square at a time forever.

The double step exists to make the opening faster. Without it, every game would begin with several slow pawn shuffles.

A pawn captures one square forward on the diagonal, to its left or to its right.

This is the only piece in chess where moving and capturing are different actions.

• A pawn cannot capture the piece directly in front of it.
• A pawn cannot capture sideways or backwards.
• A pawn cannot capture two squares away, even on its first move.

Two pawns facing each other can block each other completely, because neither one is allowed to take the other.

It is promoted. You lift the pawn off the board and put a new piece on that square straight away, as part of the same move.

• You may choose a queen, a rook, a bishop or a knight.
• You may not choose a king, and you may not leave it as a pawn.
• It does not matter what you already have. You can have two queens, or nine.

Almost everybody picks a queen. Choosing something smaller is called underpromotion, and there is exactly one good reason for it: sometimes a knight gives a check that a queen cannot. The third puzzle below is that case.

No, and this is worth saying twice, because it changes how you should play.

Every pawn move is permanent. A rook can go back where it came from. A pawn never can. So a pawn push is a decision you have to live with for the rest of the game.

Two practical rules follow from that.

• Before you push a pawn, look at the squares it stops guarding. Pushing a pawn always leaves holes behind it.
• Pawns are strongest side by side. A pawn defended by another pawn is very hard to attack.

En passant is a special pawn capture. It only happens when an enemy pawn uses its double first step to move straight past your pawn.

Say an enemy pawn moves two squares and lands right beside one of your pawns. Your pawn may capture it as though it had moved only one square. You must do it on your very next move or the chance is gone forever.

It is the strangest rule in chess and it has a page of its own. That page is next in this series, with a study that shows every case where it is and is not allowed.

Pawns look small, and each one is worth only a single point. They still decide most endings, for one reason: any pawn can turn into a queen.

Watch for these three ideas.

• A passed pawn has no enemy pawn in front of it and none on the files beside it. Nothing can stop it except a piece, so it must be watched every move.
• A doubled pawn is two of your pawns on the same file. They cannot defend each other, so they are usually a weakness.
• An isolated pawn has no friendly pawn on either side. No pawn can ever defend it, so one of your pieces has to stay behind and guard it.

When you trade pieces, ask one question first: after the trade, whose pawns are closer to becoming a queen?