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 piece makes the pieces bottom heavy and do not topple easily (a well-weighted piece should come upright even if bent to 60 degrees off vertical axis). This helps in blitz games as the speed of movement doesn't offer enough time or precision in dropping the pieces onto the intended squares. The length of each side of the squares on the chessboard should be about 1.25–1.3 times the diameter of the base of the king, or . Squares of about are normally well suited for pieces with the kings in the preferred size range. These criteria are from the United States Chess