High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In chess, a desperado piece is a piece that seems determined to give itself up, typically either (1) to sell itself as dearly as possible in a situation where both sides have hanging pieces or (2) to bring about stalemate if it is captured (or in some instances, to force a draw by threefold repetition if it is not captured) (Hooper & Whyld 1992:106–7). Andrew Soltis describes the former type of desperado as "a tactical resource in which you use your doomed piece to eat as much material as possible before it dies" (Soltis 1975:246).