We Were All Wrong.

 We Were All Wrong.


About piece values and how much each piece is worth. We were all taught these values when we were children, or when we first learned the game.

Because it has now revealed to be a guess.


According to Alpha Zero in a paper published in 2020, the pieces in classical chess are worth as follows:


Pawn = 1

Knight = 3.05

Bishop = 3.33

Rook =5.63

Queen =9.5


So the whole Bishop worth 3, Knight worth 3, Rook worth 5 etc was guessing but it was good guessing and not far off, if the computer evaluation is anything to go by.


Clearly a lot depends on the situation on the board. A bishop flourishes in an open position. They are mobile and can cover more territory than knights. Knights by contrast are fascinating pieces, for me they are the most interesting chess pieces of all. There is something mysterious about them, the way they can jump over other pieces. But the data is clear now. Whatever your preference, it is clear that bishops are just better, if admittedly not by a huge amount. Perhaps openings like the Trompowsky where you give away the bishop pair, is already a strategic mistake. 


Still as mentioned by Demis Hassabis himself, chess as a game has been so successful over the years perhaps because the knight and bishop are fairly equal in value, but at the same time so different as pieces. That lends a dynamic quality to chess that perhaps isn't seen so much in other board games. 


Rooks have often had a bad press and there are many examples in chess history where exchanges were given away leading to flashy wins. It seems we need to upgrade those chunky pieces as two rooks combined clearly overwhelm the often glorified queen in a pure materialistic sense, for example. Rooks flourish particularly in the endgame, where more pieces are cleared off the board and there is less clutter to obstruct their true scope. 


The whole subject of materialism is an undervalued one and often underestimated in chess literature. I'm sure this topic will be more explored in the future. 


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