It can be either white or black, and it can be one of six types: king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, or pawn.

Additional pieces, usually an extra queen per color, may be provided for use in promotion or handicap games.

In a closed game with lines of protected pawns blocking bishops, knights usually become relatively more potent.

Similar ideas apply to placing rooks on open files and knights on active, central squares.

Chess evolved over time from its earliest versions in India and Persia to variants that spread both West and East.

The movement patterns for Queens and Bishops also changed, with the earliest rules restricting elephants to just two squares along a diagonal, but allowing them to "jump" (seen in the fairy chess piece the alfil); and the earliest versions of queens could only move a single square diagonally (the fairy chess piece Ferz).

Many modern variants with unorthodox pieces exist, such as Berolina chess which uses custom pawns that advance diagonally and capture vertically.