There are just 32 pieces on a chessboard, but the number of patterns in which those pieces can move in the course of an individual game are astronomical. Still, as these maps show, despite all those different possibilities, each piece has a pretty clear pattern behind it. The maps, which track the most common trajectories of each chess piece, are the works of Steve Tung. Tung explained the process behind the maps to io9, noting that each map represents condensed data from over 2 million individual games of chess.
» Ria Misra | io9.com