Desperado (chess) Desperado (chess) In chess, a desperado piece is a piece that is or trapped, but captures an enemy piece before it is itself captured. This can be in either a situation where both sides have pieces, "...in which you use your doomed piece to eat as much material as possible before it dies"; or alternatively a sacrifice that will result in stalemate if it is captured. A simple example illustrating the first definition comes from a 1958 game between future World Champions Tigran Petrosian and Bobby Fischer (see diagram). White had just captured the e5-pawn with his knight on f3.
Chess is under attack, or a stalemate (a draw) if the king is not. Each chess piece has its own way of moving. In the diagrams, the dots mark the squares where the piece can move if there are no intervening piece(s) of either color. Once in every game, each king is allowed to make a special move, known as "castling". Castling consists of moving the king two squares along the first rank toward a rook (which is on the player's first rank) and then placing the rook on the last square that the king has just crossed. Castling is permissible