Beware of bishops on long diagonals!

Bishops as we know, move diagonally in the game of chess. Given the geometry of the game, that means that each bishop can only access half the squares on the board. As compared to rooks which move orthogonally and can access all squares, bishops are a relatively less powerful piece. However, bishops are more tricky – as humans, we are better at seeing up and down and side-to-side than the diagonals. This makes bishops potentially powerful in the setting of certain traps around long diagonals. In this game I played this morning, my opponent’s error involving a long diagonal allowed me to win the game.

The insight from this game is that you have to keep an eye on the diagonal moving pieces – the queen and the bishop pair. This is especially the case as pieces move and the position transforms. What was guarded and blocked a few moves ago, might have changed, and our visual systems might not automatically identify the open diagonal. I hope you enjoyed the video, and thanks for watching!

Originally published: https://adventuresofachessnoob.com/2022/01/19/beware-of-bishops-on-long-diagonals/