A chess piece, or chessman, is a game piece that is placed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. It can be either white or black, and it can be one of six types: king, queen, rook, bishop, knight, or pawn.

Chess sets generally come with sixteen pieces of each color. Additional pieces, usually an extra queen per color, may be provided for use in promotion or handicap games.

Each player begins with sixteen pieces (but see the subsection below for other usage of the term piece). The pieces that belong to each player are distinguished by color: the lighter colored pieces are referred to as "white" and the player that controls them as "White", whereas the darker colored pieces are referred to as "black" and the player that controls them as "Black".

In a standard game, each of the two players begins with the following sixteen pieces:

The word "piece" has three meanings, depending on the context.

The rules of chess prescribe the moves each type of chess piece can make. During play, the players take turns moving their own chess pieces.

Pieces other than pawns capture in the same way that they move. A capturing piece replaces the opponent piece on its square, except for an en passant capture by a pawn. Captured pieces are immediately removed from the game. A square may hold only one piece at any given time. Except for castling and the knight's move, no piece may jump over another piece.

The value assigned to a piece attempts to represent the potential strength of the piece in the game. As the game develops, the relative values of the pieces will also change. For example, in an open game, bishops are relatively more valuable; they can be positioned to control long, open diagonal spaces. 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. The standard valuation is one point for a pawn, three points for a knight or bishop, five points for a rook, and nine points for a queen. These values are reliable in endgames, particularly with a limited number of pieces. But these values can change depending on the position or the phase of the game (opening, middle game, or ending). A bishop pair for example, is worth an additional half-pawn on average. In specific circumstances, the values may be quite different: sometimes a knight can be more valuable than a queen if a particular angle is required for a mating attack, such as certain smothered mates. The humble pawn becomes more and more valuable the closer it is to securing a queen promotion for another example.