Pawn moves in chess
Stockfish 16.1 · runs in your browserPlay e4. White's e-pawn moves from e2 to e4; Black moves next.
Play on the board, or use Type a move below it.
Play a move by typing it, like e4, Nf3 or e7e8q, then press Enter.
Commentary
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Best move
A pawn advances one square into an empty square. From its starting square it may advance two if both squares are clear. It captures one square diagonally forward. En passant and promotion are the special pawn rules.
Try the moves
Choose an example, play the suggested move, then reset to compare another legal move.
Rules and examples
The board positions are original teaching examples. Rule references and further practice are linked below.
Rules: FIDE Laws of Chess, effective 1 January 2023. https://handbook.fide.com/chapter/E012023
Rule replay: python-chess 1.11.2 (GPL-3.0-or-later). The shared browser engine retains its Stockfish GPL-3.0 notice. No engine score is claimed by these demonstrations.
Read the rulesA move on the board
rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1
rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/4P3/8/PPPP1PPP/RNBQKBNR b KQkq e3 0 1
- e4White's e-pawn moves from e2 to e4; Black moves next.
White's e-pawn moves from e2 to e4; Black moves next.
Original teaching example replayed with python-chess 1.11.2, 2026-10-18.
Analysis runs on Stockfish 16.1 in your browser, compiled to WebAssembly by stockfish.js. Stockfish is free software under the GNU General Public License v3; its source code is on GitHub.