Who takes whom in chess
Which piece takes which, in 1.8 million captures from 120,000 online games. Pawn takes pawn is nearly one capture in five. Take a queen with a knight or bishop and you go on to win three games in four; if your king is doing the taking, you usually lose. Then the sixteen pawns: White’s e-pawn against Black’s d-pawn is the most common pawn trade, and the Sicilian’s c-pawn against d-pawn is next, with Black usually doing the taking.
Download the chart as an image
Data: the Lichess open database, August 2026 (CC0): 120,000 rated games with both players rated 800 or more, ending normally; 1,812,777 captures, both colours together. A promoted pawn counts as the piece it became; en passant counts as pawn takes pawn. Pawns are named by the file they start on and keep that name after capturing; a ribbon is shown for each pair of pawns making at least 0.25% of pawn-takes-pawn captures. Win rates are over decisive games. Best: knight takes queen (74%); worst: king takes knight (36%). Played as puzzles in Daily Shade.