In order to judge your position or see whether an exchange will be beneficial to you, you need to know the relative values of the pieces. ?Briefly, the value of the pieces goes decreasingly as follows: King, Rook, Bishop, Gold, Silver, Knight, Lance, Pawn.

There are also three numerical systems that try to accurately pinpoint just how much a piece is worth, two of which are proposed by professional players Kouji Tanigawa and Yasumitsu Satou:

Keep in mind that these are not exact, and a piece’s value can changed based upon its position. ?(For example, a left on 11 from capturing a lance is nearly worthless, whereas a gold in hand is considered very valuable.)

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