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For our main repository, please see https://git.io/chess esp. for the quotes and maxims.
The centipawn is the unit of measure used in chess as measure of the advantage. A centipawn is equal to 1/100 of a pawn. Therefore 100 centipawns = 1 pawn. These values play no formal role in the game but are useful to players, and essential in computer chess to evaluate positions.
World Champion (from 1894 to 1921, and notable mathematician) Emanuel Lasker gave the following values:
- Pawn = 100 (on average)
- Knight = 350
- Bishop = 350 (on average)
- Rook = 500 (on average)
- Queen = 850
However, Lasker adjusted some values depending on the starting positions. Pawns near the center, also bishops and rooks on the kingside, are worth more:
- d/e-file pawn = 150 points
- a/h-file pawn = 50 points
- c-file bishop = 350 points
- f-file bishop = 375 points
- a-file rook = 450 points
- h-file rook = 525 points.
Lasker, in his book Chess Manual, gave these relative values for the early part of the game:
- Rook pawn: 50
- Knight pawn: 125
- Bishop pawn: 150
- Central pawn: 200
- Knight: 450 (either queenside or kingside)
- Queen bishop: 450
- King bishop: 500
- Queen rook: 600
- King rook: 700
- Queen: 1,100
Source, and other alternative valuations: http://chess.wikia.com/wiki/Centipawn
The score is usually scaled to units of centipawns. A positive value means white is winning. A negative value means black is winning.
For the Stockfish engine, the score is an aggregate of various factors such as material, pawn structure, space advantage, mobility, two-bishops, king safety, etc. It is not a matter of just arithmetic material accounting of relative values. The reported score is a computational approximation given the state of the board and the evaluation of best possible moves -- for details, see https://chessprogramming.wikispaces.com/Evaluation
Shortcut to his page: https://git.io/chesswik | Last update : 2017-12-20