The bishop is a unique chess piece. It could be one of the most powerful pieces, rivaling the queen, if it had not had half of its capabilities cut off. We could say that it is a piece that split in two!

Of the sixteen pieces you have when you start a game of chess, two are bishops. And although we also have two rooks or two knights, the character of bishops is a unique case.

If maybe you are just starting to play chess online and yet don’t know what to expect, or if you have been a regular visitor of the chessboard, join us to discover that the bishops are very special pieces. 🤩

What Is so Special About Bishops?

Although the king and queen give the royal character to the game of chess, the bishop could be the most natural piece of chess. Many people when they see the chess board for the first time, mistakenly believe that one must move along squares of the same color. 🕹️ This is a rather intuitive idea. Perhaps, inspired by the way checkers is played, a simpler game that shares many things with chess.

When a person does not know how to play chess, and he/she is put in front of a chessboard, one of the things he/she does is to trace unconscious moves through squares of the same color. His/her mind is moving an imaginary piece by diagonals.

How Does the Bishop Move in Chess?

With the above in mind, we’ve figured out how the bishop moves! That’s right, the bishop moves on diagonal lines. It can crisscross the entire chessboard, by means of the diagonals created by connecting squares of the same color.

How many diagonals are there on the chessboard?

Well, we would have to count them and this would be a good mental exercise. However, a conclusion that we can reach by simple observation is that the bishop is a piece that is denied access to a large part of the board.

5 Commandments for Your Bishop

• You can move the bishop as many squares as you want. One square, or till you hit the edge of the board!
• You can take with your bishop any enemy piece you find on the path.
• Your bishop cannot jump over any other piece, neither yours nor your opponent’s.
• You cannot change the color of your bishop. You cannot convert a light-squared bishop into a dark-squared bishop, and vice-versa.
• Your bishops must move always over diagonals!

From 64 squares on the chessboard, a bishop can only access half of them!

The other half of the board does not exist for him. The board has 32 light squares and 32 dark squares. A bishop can only move on squares of the same color (the same tone or shade). Then the bishop can only use half of the entire board!

🎲 You don’t need higher mathematics, as it could be game theory in chess, to see that 32 is the half of 64.

Fortunately, this half of the board does not refer to half of one’s own territory. For, if it did, the bishop could never help to attack. The half we are talking about, when we think of a bishop, refers to all the squares of a board if we imagine a board without pieces.

How to Reach Those Other 32 Squares?

It is possible that those who invented chess decided to take half of its power away from the bishop, so that this piece would never rival the matchless queen. 👽 Imagine a bishop that could move along all the diagonals, whether black or white…

However, perhaps to compensate, in the wonderful game of chess, where everything fits perfectly, we have the opportunity to play not with a single bishop, but with two. We have in our arsenal two pieces, which together cover the entire board, with unparalleled joint power.

One bishop is placed on the queenside and the other bishop is placed on the kingside. One bishop is side by side with the queen, and the other bishop is side by side with the king. At the starting position of a chess game, the two bishops are escorting the royal couple.

🎯 On King and Queen: Correct Placement on the Chessboard we saw that the king and queen are placed side by side on squares of opposite colors. If the bishops occupy squares adjacent to the king and the queen, it is a logical consequence that the bishops also end up occupying squares of different colors.

Thus we have a light-squared bishop and a dark-squared bishop. The former will always move only on light squares, while the latter will always be limited to move on dark squares. Each bishop has the “freedom” to move all over the chessboard, as long as it complies with the restriction of moving only on the squares of the color that corresponds to it.

Light-squared Bishop and Dark-squared Bishop

In the midst of the confusion that can be created when we think only in black and white, we need to learn to recognize each bishop and call it by its name. On the chessboard, there are four bishops, two for each side. How do you recognize each one?

• The bishop that runs over the light squares, originally known as white squares, is called the light-squared bishop. This bishop lives on the queenside for Black, and on the kingside for White. And each side has one of these.
• The bishop that runs over the dark squares, originally known as black squares, is called the dark-squared bishop. This bishop lives on the queenside for White, and on the kingside for Black. And each side has one of these.

So, in a normal chess game, we have two light-squared bishops and two dark-squared bishops. One of each type for each side. ⚔️ Both bishops are powerful weapons to attack the king and put him in check.

How Much Is a Bishop Worth in Chess?

For ease, a beginner in chess is taught that a bishop is worth 3 points. Novices often learn this from a table where the queen is worth 9 and a pawn is worth 1. Under the same table of values, the knight would have the same value of 3. However, as we saw in What Is the Weakest Piece in Chess, the real value of all pieces depends on their role in a particular chess game.

Dynamics can change if you are able to make the most of this “double” piece. If you know how to take advantage of the power of the two bishops, the limit of what you can do and the real value of the bishop will be determined by you.