The power of the two bishops

Hello everyone!

Knights and bishops are equally strong chess pieces. While the knight is a slow piece, it can go to any square, while the fast bishop only has the squares of his colour to move to. Such, the two bishops are very strong, as they carry out each other's weaknesses. Therefore, if one side owns the two bishops while the other side doesn't, that side usually has an advantage. There are exceptions to this of course, e.g. in closed positions were knights are superior, but for the most part, and especially in an open game, the two bishops can be totally dominating the entire board. Therefore, it is always a difficult decision to trade a bishop for a knight, that has to be thought about a lot. An opening with an early exchange of a bishop for the knight is the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez:

Especially in an open game, the two bishops working together with the Queen can mean great danger to a king caught in the center. But even without Queens, bishops working together with rooks against a king caught in the center can lead to decesive tactics that can carry you to victory, like in a recent online chess game of mine:

I hope you enjoyed this blog entry.

     - yellowchesstiger