The exchange (chess) The exchange (chess) The exchange in chess refers to a situation in which one player loses a minor piece (i.e. a bishop or knight) but captures the opponent's rook. The side which wins the rook is said to have "won the exchange", while the other player has "lost the exchange", since the rook is usually more valuable. Alternatively, the side that has won the rook is "up the exchange", and the other player is "down the exchange". The opposing captures often happen on consecutive moves, although this is not strictly necessary. It is generally detrimental to lose the exchange, although
Chess piece outset. Some small magnetic sets, designed to be compact and/or for travel, have pieces more like those used in shogi and xiangqi – each piece being a similar flat token, with a symbol printed on it to identify the piece type. On computers, chess pieces are often 2D symbols on a 2D board, although some programs have 3D graphics engines with more traditional designs of chess pieces. Unicode contains symbols for chess pieces in both white and black. The value assigned to a piece attempts to represent the potential strength of the piece in the game. As the game develops,