Thebishop (♗, ♝) is apiece in the game ofchess. It moves and captures alongdiagonals without jumping over interfering pieces. Each player begins the game with two bishops. The starting squares are c1 and f1 for White's bishops, and c8 and f8 for Black's bishops.
Theking's bishop is placed on f1 for White and f8 for Black; thequeen's bishop is placed on c1 for White and c8 for Black.
The bishop has no restrictions in distance for each move but is limited to diagonal movement. It cannot jump over other pieces. A bishop captures by occupying the square on which an enemy piece stands. As a consequence of its diagonal movement, each bishop always remains on one square color. Owing to this, it is common to refer to a bishop as alight-squared ordark-squared bishop.
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Initial placement of the bishops
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The black bishop can move to any of the squares marked by a black dot. The white bishop can move to any square marked by a white dot or capture thepawn on d7.
Arook is generally worth about twopawns more than a bishop. The bishop has access to only half of the squares on the board, whereas all squares of the board are accessible to therook. When unobstructed, a rook attacks fourteen squares regardless of position, whereas a bishop attacks no more than thirteen (from one of four center squares) and sometimes as few as seven (from sides and corners). A king and rook canforcecheckmate against a lone king, whereas a king and bishop cannot.[1] A king and two bishops on opposite-colored squares, however,can force mate.
Knights and bishops are each worth about three pawns. This means bishops are approximately equal in strength to knights, but depending on the game situation, either may have a distinct advantage. In general, the bishop is slightly stronger than the knight.
Less experienced players tend to underrate the bishop compared to the knight because the knight can reach all squares and is more adept atforking. More experienced players understand the power of the bishop.[2]
Bishops usually gain in relative strength towards theendgame as more pieces are captured and more open lines become available on which they can operate. A bishop can easily influence both wings simultaneously, whereas a knight is less capable of doing so. In an open endgame, a pair of bishops is decidedly superior to either a bishop and a knight, or two knights. A player possessing a pair of bishops has a strategic weapon in the form of a long-term threat to trade down to an advantageous endgame.[1]
Two bishops on opposite-colored squares and kingcan force checkmate against a lone king, whereastwo knights cannot. A bishop and knightcan force mate, but with far greater difficulty than two bishops.
In certain positions a bishop can by itself lose a move (seetriangulation andtempo), while a knight can never do so. The bishop is capable ofskewering orpinning a piece, while the knight can do neither. A bishop can in some situations hinder a knight from moving. In these situations, the bishop is said to be "dominating" the knight.
On the other hand, in theopening andmiddlegame a bishop may be hemmed in by pawns of both players, and thus be inferior to a knight which can jump over them. A knightcheck cannot beblocked but a bishop check can. Furthermore, on a crowded board a knight has many tactical opportunities tofork two enemy pieces. A bishop can fork, but opportunities are rarer. One such example occurs in the position illustrated, which arises from theRuy Lopez: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 b5 6.Bb3 Be7 7.d4 d6 8.c3 Bg4 9.h3!? Bxf3 10.Qxf3 exd4 11.Qg3 g6 12.Bh6!
Bishop dominating a knight
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The knight cannot move to any of its four legal squares without being captured by the black bishop.
Example of bishop fork
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After 12...Nxe4?, the forking 13.Bd5! winsmaterial after, e.g., 13...Nxg3 14.Bxc6+ Qd7 15.Bxd7+ Kxd7 16.fxg3.
Position after 23.Rxa1. White's bishop is good, while Black's bishop is almost entirely useless.
In the middlegame, a player with only one bishop should generally place friendly pawns on squares of the color that the bishop cannot move to. This allows the player to control squares of both colors, allows the bishop to move freely among the pawns, and helps fix enemy pawns on squares on which they can be attacked by the bishop. Such a bishop is often referred to as a "good" bishop.
Conversely, a bishop which is impeded by friendly pawns is often referred to as a "bad" bishop (or sometimes, disparagingly, a "tall pawn"). The black light-squared bishop in theFrench Defense is a notorious example of this concept, as playing 1...e6 and 2...d5 results in there being two pawns impeding its ability to join the game. A bad bishop, however, need not always be a weakness, especially if it is outside its ownpawn chains. In addition, having a bad bishop may be advantageous in anopposite-colored bishops endgame. Even if the bad bishop is passively placed, it may serve a useful defensive function; a well-known quip from GMMihai Suba is that "Bad bishops protect good pawns."[3]
In the position from the game Krasenkow–Zvjaginsev,FIDE World Chess Championship 2004,[4] a thicket of black pawns hems in Black's bishop on c8, so Black is effectively playing with one piece fewer than White. Although the black pawns also obstruct the white bishop on e2, it has many more attacking possibilities, and thus is a good bishop vis-à-vis Black's bad bishop. Black resigned after another ten moves.
A bishop may befianchettoed, for example after moving the g2 pawn to g3 and the bishop on f1 to g2. This can form a strong defense for thecastled king on g1 and the bishop can often exert strong pressure on the long diagonal (here h1–a8). A fianchettoed bishop should generally not be given up lightly, since the resultingholes in the pawn formation may prove to be serious weaknesses, particularly if the king has castled on that side of the board.
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Archetypal fianchettos (for Black)
There are nonetheless some modern opening lines where a fianchettoed bishop is given up for a knight in order to double the opponent's pawns, for example 1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c5 4.d5 Bxc3+!? 5.bxc3 f5, a sharp line originated byRoman Dzindzichashvili. Giving up a fianchettoed queen's bishop for a knight is usually less problematic. For example, inKarpov–Browne,San Antonio 1972, after 1.c4 c5 2.b3 Nf6 3.Bb2 g6?!, Karpov gave up his fianchettoed bishop with 4.Bxf6! exf6 5.Nc3, doubling Black's pawns and giving him a hole on d5.[5]
Anendgame in which each player has only one bishop, one controlling the dark squares and the other the light, will often result in adraw even if one player has a pawn or sometimes two more than the other. The players tend to gain control of squares of opposite colors, and a deadlock results. In endgames with same-colored bishops, however, even a positional advantage may be enough to win.[6]
Endgames in which each player has only one bishop (and no other pieces besides the king) and the bishops are on opposite colors are oftendrawn, even when one side has an extra pawn or two. Many of these positions would be a win if the bishops were on the same color.
Wolf vs. Leonhardt, 1905
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Draw with either side to move
Bogoljubov vs. Blümich, 1925
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Position after 28...Kf8
The position from the game H. Wolf–P. Leonhardt, 1905 (see diagram) shows an important defensive setup. Black can make no progress, since the white bishop ties the black king to defending the pawn on g4 and it also prevents the advance ...f3+ because it would simplycapture the pawn – then either the other pawn is exchanged for the bishop (an immediate draw) or the pawn advances (an easily drawn position). Otherwise the bishop alternates between the squares d1 and e2.[7]
If two pawns areconnected, they normally win if they reach their sixthrank, otherwise the game may be a draw (as above). If two pawns are separated by onefile they usually draw, but win if they are farther apart.[8]
In some cases with more pawns on the board, it is actually advantageous to have the bishops on opposite colors if one side has weak pawns. In the 1925 gameEfim Bogoljubov–Max Blümich (see diagram), White wins because of the bishops being on opposite colors making Black weak on the dark squares, the weakness of Black'sisolated pawns on thequeenside, and the weakdoubled pawns on thekingside.[9] The game continued:[10]
In anendgame with a bishop, in some cases the bishop is the "wrong bishop", meaning that it is on the wrong color of square for some purpose (usuallypromoting a pawn). For example, with just a bishop and arook pawn, if the bishop cannot control the promotion square of the pawn, it is said to be the "wrong bishop" or the pawn is said to be thewrong rook pawn. This results in some positions beingdrawn (by setting up afortress) which otherwise would be won.
Antique Indian chess bishop represented by the camel, carved from sandalwood
The bishop's predecessor in medieval chess,shatranj (originallychaturanga), was thealfil, meaning "elephant", which could leap two squares along any diagonal, and could jump over an intervening piece. As a consequence, each fil was restricted to eight squares, and no fil could attack another. The modern bishop first appeared shortly after 1200 inCourier chess.[11] A piece with this move, called acocatriz or crocodile, is part of theGrande Acedrex in theLibro de los juegos compiled in 1283 for KingAlfonso X of Castile. The game is attributed to "India", then a very vague term.[12] About half a century later Muḥammad ibn Maḥmud al-Āmulī, in hisTreasury of the Sciences, describes an expanded form of chess with two pieces moving "like the rook but obliquely".[13] The bishop was also independently invented in Japan at about the same time (the 13th century), where it formed part ofsho shogi anddai shogi; it remains present in modernshogi as the direct descendant of sho shogi.
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Where the alfil/elephant can move (cannot capture Black's knight)
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Where the bishop can move (can capture Black's knight)
Derivatives ofalfil survive in the languages of the two countries where chess was first introduced within Western Europe—Italian (alfiere) and Spanish (alfil).[14] It was known as theaufin in French,[15] or the aufin, alphin, or archer in early English.[16]
The earliest references to bishops on the chessboard are two 13th-century Latin texts,De Vetula andQuaedam moralitas de scaccario.[17][18] The etymology of "bishop" comes from Old English bisceop "bishop, high priest," from Late Latin episcopus, from Greek episkopos "watcher, overseer." The term "bishop" as applied specifically to the chess piece was first recorded in the 16th century, with the first known written example dating back to the 1560s.[16] In all other Germanic languages, except for Icelandic, it is called various names, all of which directly translate to English as "runner" or "messenger". In Icelandic, however, it is called "biskup",[19] with the same meaning as in English. The use of the term in Icelandic predates that of the English language, as the first mentioning of "biskup" in Icelandic texts dates back to the early part of the 14th century, while the 12th-centuryLewis Chessmen portray the bishop as an unambiguously ecclesiastical figure. In theSaga of Earl Mágus, which was written in Iceland somewhere between 1300 and 1325, it is described how an emperor was checkmated by a bishop. This has led to some speculations as to the origin of the English use of the term "bishop".[20][21][citation needed]
The canonical chessmen date back to theStaunton chess set of 1849. The piece's deep groove symbolizes a bishop's (or abbot's)mitre. Some have written that the groove originated from the original form of the piece, an elephant[22][23] with the groove representing the elephant'stusks.[24] The English apparently chose to call the piece a bishop because the projections at the top resembled a mitre.[25] This groove was interpreted differently in different countries as the game moved to Europe; in France, for example, the groove was taken to be ajester's cap, hence in France the bishop is calledfou (jester)[26] and in Romanianebun (meaning crazy, but also jester).[27]
In some Slavic languages (e.g. Czech/Slovak) the bishop is calledstřelec/strelec, which directly translates to English as a "shooter" meaning anarcher, while in others it is still known as "elephant" (e.g. Russianslon). InSouth Slavic languages it is usually known aslovac, meaning "hunter", orlaufer, taken from the German name for the same piece (laufer is also a co-official Polish name for the piece alongsidegoniec). In Bulgarian the bishop is called "officer" (Bulgarian:офицер), which is also the piece's alternative name in Russian; it is also calledαξιωματικός (axiomatikos) in Greek,афіцэр (afitser) in Belarusian andoficeri in Albanian.
In Mongolian and several Indian languages it is called the "camel".
In Lithuanian it is therikis, a kind of military commander inmedieval Lithuania.
In Latvia it is known aslaidnis, a term for the wooden handle part of some firearms.[28]
^Discussions on the strength of bishops is covered e.g. in "The Art of Planning, part 2" byJeremy Silman published in the July 1990 issue ofChess Life. Suba's quote is mentioned e.g. inSecrets of Modern Chess Strategy, Advances Since Nimzowitsch byJohn Watson.
^The Spanishalfil is simply a loanword of the Persian term, without any other meaning; while the Italian form becamealfiere—an already existing Germanic- or Arabian-derived word for "standard-bearer".
^Yalom, Marilyn.Birth of the Chess Queen. New York: Perennial, 2004. p. 70.
Fiske, Willard (1905),Chess in Iceland and in Icelandic literature, with historical notes on other table games (1905), The Florentine typographical society
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