Oops sorry for the infrequent posts - quality over quantity amirite :') anyway today we're gonna analyze the bishop and find out everything about them!
While Knights slowly but surely hop to whatever areas of the board they wish to go, Bishops can roar across the length of the board in a single move. This means that if those diagonals aren't blocked, the Bishop can be a fierce and highly prized piece.
Bishops can be viewed as Active, Useful, or Tall-Pawns.
- A bishop is considered active if it's outside the pawn chain and/or enjoying life on a reasonable clutter-free diagonal.
- A bishop is useful if it's doing an important defensive/aggressive task. Such a defensive bishop can be ugly to look at, but its absense would cause your position to undergo serious difficulties
- A bishop is a tall-pawn if it's not serving a useful function and is trapped behind its pawns. This kind of bishop takes on the persona of an overgorwn pawn.
THE ACTIVE BISHOP
^ in this position, everyone started out with nice Bishops. But then they didn't understand the downside of pushing pawns, which killed their bishops' activity. Every time you move a pawn, check to see how it affects the activity of your Bishops! Obviously, turning an open position into a closed one will negatively affect those pieces, so train yourself to always take the health of your Bishops into account.
so this is a highly exaggerated situation, but it clearly shows the Bishop stamping the whole b1-h7 diagonal with the brand of its authority. In the meantime, white's lone pawn will waltz into d8 and promote.
THE USEFUL BISHOP
active bishops are nice, but at times they aren't really doing anything. In that case, you have to find/create something for them to do.
*while an active bishop might look good, a useful bishop trades style for substance and addresses the deeper needs of a position
TALL PAWN
BISHOPS OF OPPOSITE COLORS
A strange battle that resembles a war between two creatures in different dimensions. Because they will live on different colored diagonals, the bishops can't touch, they can't defend what the other attacks, and if you place your pawns/king on the opposite color of the enemy bishop, the ghost-bishop will find that it can't touch anything at all.
^an insane position! Here White is 2 pawns and 3 pieces ahead. Yet, the game is a dead draw!! How can this be?
The problem for white is that his army of dark-squared bishops can't touch light squares.
final notes about the bishop:
- if you have a tall-pawn, try to free it by getting the pawns off its color or by getting it outside of the pawn chain. Failing those things, you can try to exchange it for an enemy minor piece (following the 'trade bad pieces for good ones' rule)
- bishops are usually strongest in open positions. The fewer pawns in the way of a bishop the greater its scope.
Hope you have some success stories with your active bishops! If you have questions, feel free to ask below good luck, and don't tilt
Oops sorry for the infrequent posts - quality over quantity amirite :') anyway today we're gonna analyze the bishop and find out everything about them!
While Knights slowly but surely hop to whatever areas of the board they wish to go, Bishops can roar across the length of the board in a single move. This means that if those diagonals aren't blocked, the Bishop can be a fierce and highly prized piece.
Bishops can be viewed as Active, Useful, or Tall-Pawns.
- A bishop is considered active if it's outside the pawn chain and/or enjoying life on a reasonable clutter-free diagonal.
- A bishop is useful if it's doing an important defensive/aggressive task. Such a defensive bishop can be ugly to look at, but its absense would cause your position to undergo serious difficulties
- A bishop is a tall-pawn if it's not serving a useful function and is trapped behind its pawns. This kind of bishop takes on the persona of an overgorwn pawn.
THE ACTIVE BISHOP
^ in this position, everyone started out with nice Bishops. But then they didn't understand the downside of pushing pawns, which killed their bishops' activity. Every time you move a pawn, check to see how it affects the activity of your Bishops! Obviously, turning an open position into a closed one will negatively affect those pieces, so train yourself to always take the health of your Bishops into account.
THE USEFUL BISHOP
active bishops are nice, but at times they aren't really doing anything. In that case, you have to find/create something for them to do.
*while an active bishop might look good, a useful bishop trades style for substance and addresses the deeper needs of a position
TALL PAWN
BISHOPS OF OPPOSITE COLORS
A strange battle that resembles a war between two creatures in different dimensions. Because they will live on different colored diagonals, the bishops can't touch, they can't defend what the other attacks, and if you place your pawns/king on the opposite color of the enemy bishop, the ghost-bishop will find that it can't touch anything at all.
^an insane position! Here White is 2 pawns and 3 pieces ahead. Yet, the game is a dead draw!! How can this be?
The problem for white is that his army of dark-squared bishops can't touch light squares.
final notes about the bishop:
- if you have a tall-pawn, try to free it by getting the pawns off its color or by getting it outside of the pawn chain. Failing those things, you can try to exchange it for an enemy minor piece (following the 'trade bad pieces for good ones' rule)
- bishops are usually strongest in open positions. The fewer pawns in the way of a bishop the greater its scope.
Hope you have some success stories with your active bishops! If you have questions, feel free to ask below
good luck, and don't tilt