Physically, the smallest unit on the Chessboard. A Pawn moves straight ahead but captures diagonally. Originally, a Pawn could only ever move a single square forward. During the renaissance a player was given the option of moving a Pawn forward two squares on its first move. If a Pawn reaches the eighth rank, it must be promoted to another piece.
The pawn is the weakest and most numerous piece in the game of chess, representing infantry, or more particularly pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the second rank from the view of the player. In algebraic notation the white pawns start on a2, b2, c2, ..., h2, while the black pawns start on a7, b7, c7, ..., h7.