How Many Pieces Are in a Chess Set? 32, and Why Good Sets Have 34
A chess set has 32 pieces: 16 for each player. Each side gets one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns. They sit on a board of 64 squares, 8 by 8, and at the start of a game they fill the two ranks nearest each player.
The full count, piece by piece
| Piece | Per side | Total | Starting squares (White) |
|---|---|---|---|
| King | 1 | 2 | e1 |
| Queen | 1 | 2 | d1 |
| Rook | 2 | 4 | a1 and h1 |
| Bishop | 2 | 4 | c1 and f1 |
| Knight | 2 | 4 | b1 and g1 |
| Pawn | 8 | 16 | a2 to h2 |
| Total | 16 | 32 |
Black's pieces mirror these on the eighth and seventh ranks. If you are setting up for the first time, how to set up a chess board has the order and the two mistakes almost everyone makes.
Why better sets have 34
Because pawns promote. A pawn that reaches the far end of the board becomes any piece its owner chooses, and it is a queen well over nine times out of ten, because the queen is the most powerful piece on the board.
A 32 piece set gives each player exactly one queen. So the moment a pawn promotes while the original queen is still alive, you need a queen that does not exist. The traditional fix is to turn a captured rook upside down, which everyone accepts at the kitchen table and which is not a legal substitute in a rated game. In tournament play an upturned rook is a rook.
A set with 34 pieces includes two extra queens, one per colour, and the problem never comes up. It costs the maker very little and it is a reasonable proxy for whether they thought about how the set gets used.
Both of ours ship with 34, and it is the reason our count reads 17 a side rather than 16.
How many squares does a chess board have?
64, in an 8 by 8 grid, 32 light and 32 dark. Each player starts with 16 pieces on 16 squares, so exactly half the board is occupied at move one and half is empty.
What else is in a chess set
The pieces and the board are the set. Beyond those, what comes in the box varies:
- Bags. Two drawstring bags, one per colour, so the pieces are not loose in a box. Ours include both.
- A guide. Most sets include a folded rules sheet. Ours include a 32 page illustrated strategy guide.
- A clock. Almost never included, and best bought separately.
- A scorebook. Tournament players buy their own.
If you lose a piece
A single lost pawn ruins a 32 piece set, which is a strange amount of fragility for an object people keep for decades. Before you replace a whole set, check whether the maker sells single pieces, because many do not.
Ours carry a 12 month guarantee that covers a single replacement piece rather than only the whole set, and we pay the return shipping.
Common questions
How many pawns are in a chess set?
Sixteen, eight per side. They start on the second rank for White and the seventh for Black.
How many black pieces are in a chess set?
Sixteen, and the same sixteen in white. In a 34 piece set it is seventeen each, the extra one being a queen.
Do all chess sets come with extra queens?
No, and most do not. It is worth checking the piece count in the listing: 32 means no spares, 34 means one extra queen per side.
Can you use a rook as a second queen?
At home, yes, everybody does. In a rated game, no. An upturned rook is still a rook, and moving it like a queen is an illegal move.
How many pieces does each player start with?
Sixteen: one king, one queen, two rooks, two bishops, two knights and eight pawns.
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