Chess pieces' values
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joeym0915
Aug 16, 2025
0
#121
Interesting
Aug 16, 2025
0
#122
Indeed. If you have any questions related to this forum, ask me in the comments.
Jahnavi-Shankar wrote:
And their values in the past.
18th century (Modenese School): The earliest standard values were established, with the queen valued at 9 points, rook at 5, bishop and knight at 3, and pawn at 1.
19th century (Howard Staunton & others): Some early sources suggested slightly different values, such as the queen being worth 9.94, rook 5.48, bishop 3.50, knight 3.05, and pawn 1.00.
Early 20th century (Hermann Vogler): Some theorists experimented with alternative values, such as the queen being worth 10 points, rook 5.84, bishop 3.53, knight 2.89, and pawn 0.5.
It's not practical to worry about numerical piece values - as the value of each piece changes depending on the position.
This means that the value of a knight could be different from one move to the next (and so on for every other piece on the board) so there's really no point thinking about such things.
"Is my bishop worth 3.74 or 2.98 here? Is my knight worth 3.19 or 4.29 here?" This kind of thinking isn't helpful at all - and no experienced human player thinks in this way.
Don't try to think like a calculator - think like a human. Try to understand the needs of the position ... then you'll get better at recognizing which pieces are more valuable than others.
For example: if there's a lot of tension around a pawn that's defended by one player and attacked by another, then your eyes should be drawn to the piece defending that square. And then you start calculating - not numerical values, but *move sequences* ... That's thinking like a human.