Knights vs. Bishops: a neverending struggle

No matter what we do in life, we will always end up at a crossroad somewhere. For some, the choices might be as simple as wearing a blue or green sweater today. For others it might be about picking the correct wire to prevent the bomb from exploding.

In chess, a likely crossroad is: Knight or Bishop. Time and time again, games are decided by this seemingly innocuous imbalance. After all, they're both minor pieces and worth three points each, right?

Wrong. The value of a piece has to be determined game-by-game. Rooks are only powerful on open files. If there are no pawn breaks available, the major piece is useless. Bishops need open diagonals and are particularly strong when dealing with play on both sides of the board. As for knights, they need to be centralized and play on one side favours them. Queens are generally really useful; if you can't take advantage of them... consider reassessing your chess levels

Let's look at some bishop vs. knight battles.

If you answered no, then you are correct! In my game, I will get passers on both rook files. With the dominating knight on f5, I am able to cut the board into two. His Bishop will have to stop the a-pawn, his king the h pawn, allowing my king to roam and capture material as I please. Even if he had his h-pawn and a-pawn, I can still use the f5 outpost to my advantage.

#2 A knight on the sixth rank is great. What about in this case?