Greetings, reader!
Yeah, I know, "supposed to be a movie/TV" blog. But, y'know, I got this idea and wanted to post it, so really, who gives a shit? Anyways, for all you fellow chess fans out there, I wanna make it clear that this isn't an objective power ranking, as that one is quite agreed-upon and would therefore make for a boring post. No, this is all about subjective preference - factors like how much I like playing with each piece, how good I am with each piece, the concept of the piece and what the it brings to the game in terms of tactical intrigue, et cetera. This is my definitive ranking of all six chess pieces!
6. The bishop
I don't have anything personal against the bishop - more than anything else, it's a skill issue. As a player, I'm not as good with the bishop as I am with many of the other pieces. I have a handle on the basics, but especially the kind of thinking-many-steps-ahead that a great chess player should have - for whatever reason, I have more of that when it comes to other pieces than these diagonal motherf**kers. That goes for utilizing my own bishops, as well as anticipating the opponent's - quite often when I end up losing, it's because I failed to fully prepare for a particularly clever ruse involving bishops.
5. The king
This would be a clear choice for last place, but when you're an overthinking list-nerd like myself, opinions have a tendency to evolve - and so I've gone from the traditional starting point of the king being inherently overrated, all the way to claiming that the king is actually underrated.
Now, don't get me wrong - the king is a lazy, useless piece of shit. But that's what makes it into a weirdly awesome piece in the grand scheme of the game! It makes the tactical side so much more interesting than it would be if the most powerful piece would be the one everything revolves around. I also love the anti-monarchy sentiment that allegedly got the original developer of the modern rules executed once the king realized the statement: the king is nothing without the people working for him, and it seems inherently unfair and bogus that it all revolves around that weak-ass bastard. Pretty awesome social commentary for medieval times right there.
I also like how you rarely get to play very creatively with the king - but when you do, it's utterly fascinating. Especially in endgame situations where one or both players have very few pieces left, the addition of the king into an attack has some intriguing implications because there's so much you can't do that it's completely different from attacking with any other piece. All of this being said, the king is only fifth despite being underrated, because once again, it is a very weak and mostly useless piece.
4. The knight
On one hand, I feel like the knight could be even higher, depending on which part of the criteria I'm emphasizing - it is in many ways the most unique piece, with its movement pattern being a fantastic curveball into the gameplay. With every other piece's movement pattern being more rigidly structured, you have to appreciate that chess would be an inescapably more boring game if it wasn't for the delightful bit of chaos brought on by the knights.
However, I had to deduce points for the same reason I had with the bishop being last - I'm not that great with knights. I'm not bad with 'em either, but it's definitely not one of my big strengths, and long-term strategizing involving knights just isn't in my DNA in the way some pieces are. I'm okay with using knights in my attacks and anticipating my opponent's use of theirs, but a bit clumsy on both counts.
3. The pawn
Yeah, I know, the pawn could easily be argued for last place for any number of reasons - it's the smallest, weakest, most boring piece. But the thing is - I love the role of the pawn. And it's largely because of that easy complaint - take a piece that is just lesser to the other pieces, but give the player a lot of them - and the tactical implications are fascinating.
The ways in which one uses their pawns in any given chess game is just so intriguing - when are they sacrificed, when are they used to balance the scales of an upcoming conflict, when are they diversions and parts of a trap and when are they used to actually do their own thing. Using these little guys as gradual building blocks for a larger tactic is cool as shit - and, when compared to the bishop or even knight, my evaluation is that I'm actually pretty good with my pawns. As good as a wannabe chess player like myself can be, anyhow.
2. The queen
This absolute icon would definitely top most people's rankings, and I can see why. It can very well be that my ranking of the queen at #2 instead of #1 is just due to the same over-thinking that put the king at #5 instead of #6, but that being said - I am not saying for a second that the queen would be overrated. She's the best, most powerful piece in the game, and completely deserving of her iconic status. Playing with the queen is fun as hell, and the tactical intrigue of this mega-powerful piece that can do whatever the f**k she wants is pretty cool.
I also love the feminist lore behind the piece - allegedly it was Queen Isabella of Portugal who confronted the game developer who had brought chess to their court, and spoke her mind about the queen piece (who had been initially conceived as a much weaker piece). She got her way, and the queen evolved into a much more accurate representation of women - a kick-ass icon who effortlessly overshadows the incompetent men around her.
I'm also quite good with the piece when playing chess, although not top-tier good like some - namely my Finnish grandfather Heikki, the man who taught me the game of chess and remains one of the toughest opponents I've ever faced. His use of the queen in his tactics is a thing to behold, as he truly utilizes the piece to full potential in a genius manner.
1. The rook
Obviously, I'm not saying that the rook is objectively better or more powerful as a piece than the queen. Remember, this list is of my subjective favorites - and I can't help but put the rook at #1. This is due to many factors, but especially this one: if the pieces were ranked solely based on how good I am with each piece, the rook would not only be at #1 but it would be absolutely clear ahead of the rest. For whatever reason, I loved the movement patterns and tactical implications of the rook already as a kid, so I've always done a lot with them and utilized them in my defense and offense patterns throughout my life, which has only enforced the rook's role as the piece that I work with the best.
It's not only that I love to utilize my own rooks in whatever I'm up to, but also that my own tactics largely rely on the elimination of the opponent's. I've found this to be a cornerstone of my tactics a long time ago: going for the opponent's well-protected queen from the beginning might end up being a costly suicide mission, whereas pieces like the bishop or knight are too 'small fish' for a particularly elaborate trap. But the rook, a piece that is clearly more valuable than the others but clearly less valuable than the queen, has the perfect balance: compared to the queen, a rook might be just unguarded enough that elaborately trapping and eliminating it might work, and compared to a bishop/knight, the piece is just consequential enough that eliminating one or both might be the turning point that leads to an eventual victory. Nearly every time that I win at chess, there's at least one successful rook elimination behind the end result (and most of the time, one or both of my own rooks are heavily involved in the checkmate).
I also love the visual character design - from chess set to chess set, the rooks always look very cool. And finally, one very underrated aspect about why I love the piece so much is the intrigue of its starting position. It's a fascinating and well-built part of the game design: you can't simply start getting up to any shit with the rook, as there's so much in the way. You need to get your pawns out of the way in a well-planned manner, and build up to the entrance of your rook into the gameplay. And once the pawns start to be off the way, there's often the danger of your rook facing the opponent's, which always brings some neat implications with the balance of terror in how the movement patterns cancel each other out so one rook can't directly threaten the other. The mind games involving this piece are awesome.
Thank you for reading! Tune in next week for my ranking of the top 10 versions of the Wizard of Oz story, in honor of Wicked: For Good (2025).
No comments:
Post a Comment