A king can move one square in any direction (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) unless the square is already occupied by a friendly piece or the move would place the king in check.
The queen can be moved any number of unoccupied squares in a straight line vertically, horizontally, or diagonally, thus combining the moves of the rook and bishop.
The bishops may be differentiated according to which wing they begin on, i.e. the king's bishop and queen's bishop. As a consequence of its diagonal movement, each bishop always remains on either the white or black squares, and so it is also common to refer to them as light- squared or dark-squared bishops.
The knight move is unusual among chess pieces. It moves to a square that is two squares away horizontally and one square vertically, or two squares vertically and one square horizontally. The complete move therefore looks like the letter "L". Unlike all other standard chess pieces, the knight can "jump over" all other pieces (of either color) to its destination square.
The rook moves horizontally or vertically, through any number of unoccupied squares (see diagram).
Unlike the other pieces, pawns cannot move backwards. Normally a pawn moves by advancing a single square, but the first time a pawn moves, it has the option of advancing two squares.