Chess piece middle game, endings). A for example, is worth half a pawn. In specific circumstances, the values may be quite different: A knight can be more valuable than a queen in a particular decisive attack. Courier Chess, a predecessor of modern chess, used all six chess pieces plus a courier, man (or rath or sage), and jester. Although the symbols for pieces have international standards, the characters implied by pieces' names vary between languages. For example, in many languages, the piece known in English as the "knight" is named a term that translates to "horse". Chess piece A chess piece, or
Algebraic notation (chess) meaning of "elephant" in the European languages that use it for the piece called "bishop" in English. Besides the FIDE standard (or short) algebraic notation (SAN) already described, several similar systems are in use for their own particular advantages. Figurine algebraic notation (or FAN) is a widely used variation of algebraic notation which substitutes a piece symbol for the letter representing a piece, for example: ♞c6 in place of Nc6. (Pawns are unlabeled, just like in regular algebraic notation.) This enables moves to be read independent of language. The Unicode Miscellaneous Symbols set includes all the symbols necessary for FAN.