Pawn Captures

Here is the pawn's famous quirk, and it makes the pawn unique in the whole army: it moves one way and captures another. A pawn walks straight ahead, but it captures one square diagonally forward:

The pawn on e4 can walk forward to e5, or capture the black pawn diagonally on d5.

The flip side: a pawn can never capture straight ahead. Put an enemy piece directly in front of it, with nothing on its capture squares, and the pawn is completely frozen. Two pawns meeting face to face block each other for good:

Face to face on e4 and e5. Neither pawn can move: straight ahead is blocked, and there is nothing to capture diagonally.

Give that same pawn targets on both capture squares and it suddenly has choices. Every square one step diagonally forward of a pawn is a square it attacks:

The pawn on e4 may push to e5 or capture on d5 or f5. Three moves from one little soldier.

Remember it as walk straight, fight sideways. Every other piece captures exactly the way it moves; the pawn is the only one with two different rules, and that little diagonal bite decides more beginner games than any other rule in this chapter.