Whats the True Value of a Bishop?

Hello chess fans I'm back! This is one of the most controversial topics and is interesting as well. Many people value the Bishop in different ways. Today I will jump into some math as well as what some great chess players think.

When your were first taught chess you probably learn that Bishops and Knights are worth three pawns rooks are 5 and queens are worth 9 pawns. So to determine the proper value of a bishop in pawns we must first determine the value of a pawn. There are many ways to do so and even a pawn can be disvalued. I decided to get into the math of square coverage, so the amount of squares a pieces can cover at the center of the board. I chose this because with chess logic the queen is the most valuable piece right? It is because It can cover the most squares on the board (27 squares).

So then we get into the question how many squares can a pawns cover? Well if we say three squares the square its on as well as the squares in which it can attack and takes pikes. If then since the number is three if we divide the amount of squares the other pieces can move to by 3 then we should get their value in pawns. With is calculation then it would be Knight (9 squares) would have the value of three pawns. Bishops (14 squares) would actually be 4 and 2/3 of a pawn. Rooks would be 5 and queens would be 9.

Now the rest of this looks very similar to the basic value system you might have learned as a beginner. Everything's the same except for the bishop. According to this research a bishop is actually closer to a rook than a knight but a bishop can only ever go on half of the squares and a knight can jump so maybe they are equal?

So what do some of the greats think of the bishops value? Well the legendary Bobby Fischer thought that bishops were worth 3.25 compared to a knight's 3 pawns. The great Garry Kasparov has said that he might value it at 3.15. So what do you think? What have you seen in your games that has shown you the value of a bishop? its all still debatable and there are many other things that can effect the value of a piece.