Why Bother Having A Dark Square Bishop?

Starting out with 1.d4, why bother having a dark square bishop on the chessboard?

Viewing the most recent Queen's Gambit Declined game in ChessBase from the highest rated game, the great one, Magnus, doesn't even move his dark square bishop until MOVE 19! What was this young man thinking? Isn't it best to bring all of one's army to the battle?

The London/Torre dark square bishop attacks on move three!

Please explain the behavior of this Freddie the Freeloader Bishop below. What is it's purpose? Thank you.  

I must also share this classic jazz tune - Freddie Freeloader by Miles Davis. Carlsen's bishop and this tune are moving at about the same speed.

In the actual game, Carlsen's dark bishop was mysteriously glued to the board. While the tournament arbiters were painstakingly trying to remove the piece from the board, the game carried on. Carlsen, a true master, worked around this major weakness. On move 19, the bishop was finally removed via chainsaw, and Carlsen moved it gleefully.

It moves at a leisurely pace, but is very effective.

lol it seemed to get the job done in the end. my real beef is with the king. Why bother to have one? without it, your army knows no defeat

@Psyduck: Your army also knows no victory. :P

I guess it's kind of a Zen thing. The Bishop doesn't go anywhere until it has somewhere to go. And then, there it is.

That does explain things.

Oh my! I didn't know anything about TWIC (The Week In Chess Magazine) until you pointed it out. Good grief, I've missed a lot!

Yes. In post # 2, Gambitbishop is correct in that someone sabatoged Carlsen's dark square bishop, not allowing it to move until a chainsaw solved the problem on move 19.

Here is a very recent game played December of this year where in the QGD, White's dark square bishop was developed on move 5. Much better.

TWIC updates are This Week in Chess recent games. They are free weekly updates and usually have somewhere around 1k (low amount) and sometimes up to 5k games. You can download them from the CBase interface. Go to Help and click get TWIC. Then to view games faster, make TWIC your reference database.

Download them, really helpful and tells you kinda whats going on in the recent chess world. HOWEVER, keep in mind that not all of the games in there are by masters and you should always check the ratings of both players. Ive seen games in there by people below 2000.

And white's dark squared bishop generally isn't a major problem like black's light squared bishop. Its just the variation chosen. The bishop can often easily get out and like I said in your other thread, you can play vars where the bishop goes to f4 or g5 in the QGD.

I really like TWIC! What a wonderful discovery. Thank you! 

When looking at the game in post #9, that is my new way of developing White's dark square bishop. The QG is much more enjoyable for me with this approach. I simply can't stand having my dark square bishop parked on c1 for most of the game. Also, some pretty cool tactics can happen when this bishop goes active early.

Well, the philosophy behind leaving the bishop on c1 sometimes is that:

1. It does take a move to get out, which arguably could be better spent fighting to win the center (like by playing for e4 for example, after which the bishop would suddenly be opened) or something.

2. Sometimes the bishop can get in the way or even be exposed to harassment by the black pieces. For instance, a bishop on f4 can sometimes be hit by ...Nh5, trying to trade bishop for knight. If the bishop was on c1 true it would be blocked but if it's a queen pawn opening with a closed center it'll probably be a pretty long game! Later white may be glad he didn't allow his bishop, safe in its own territory to have been traded for the knight, as late in the game it may find itself more open fighting for the dark squares. Also, a bishop on g5 risks exchanging itself for a passive e7 bishop, especially if white plays for e4, as generally black can take on e4 and after Nxe4, play ...Nxe4 which can result in many soothing exchanges.

 The bishop, even on c1, does have influence over the c1-h6 diagonal, which can be remarkably useful. It may not be worth moving if that's the only important dark diagonal currently important. It can also fianchetto where it supports the center safely from the wing, which also comes with the sometimes useful move b3, planning to bring a pawn right to the center after ...dxc4 bxc4.

Of course, the bishop moving out has its good points too (such as, actually being in the game right away!), but you will notice many lines of the queen's gambit has white delaying development of it because he's more concerned with winning the center quickly and doesn't want the piece's desire to always do something get in the way. Remember a bishop on f4 may look nice, but as of yet it doesn't directly attack anything particularly useful. It controls the center, but there are a lot of ways to do that. As mentioned if white can achieve e4, the bishop's inactivity will only be an illusion.

However, if we talk about black in the queen's gambit matters are very different! Compared to white, black doesn't have so much freedom to play moves like ...e5 so easily, and he has to worry more about the pressure on his center and white's ability to open the center before black's ready with e4, on top of figuring out a way to get it into play at all!

@ Estragon and Elubas - Wow. I never saw Bc1 this way before and will save both of your excellent posts. Thank you!

How do both of you deal with the e4 square in 1.d4 openings? For me, Black places a knight or pawn on that very nice center square on my side of the board, and well...it's most unpleasant.

Anand permits Black to place a pawn on e4 at move 12, but Anand knows when it is o.k. to give up the e4 square. I do not. Also, Anand does not move Bc1 until move 14, making it temporarily very bad behind two of his own pawns at c3 and d4, but then makes Bc1-Bb2 very good with 19.Ba3. This guy has patience!

I miss Red Skelton. Watched every one of his shows on t.v. many times. Guys like that only come around once a century. 

One of the most remarkable things about Skelton's comedy was how clean it was, even in the more conservative society of the times.

I agree and believe it takes a bit more imagination and brilliance to do clean comedy. Bill Cosby comes to mind. The first comedy album I ever heard was one of his. The Noah skit was absolutely hilarious. 

The full text of the monologue can be found here: http://www.jr.co.il/humor/noah4.txt

Here's a part of the intro. Cosby's way of saying "Right" had me in stiches. :)

-----------
Whoompa, whoompa, whoompa, whoompa
Noah!
Somebody call?
Whoompa, whoompa, whoompa
Noah!
Who is that?
It's the Lord, Noah
Right!

Where are ja?
What you want? I've been good.
I want you to build an Ark
Right!
Whats an Ark?
Get some wood build it
300 cubits by 80 cubits by 40 cubits
Right!
Whats a cubit?
Lets see a cubit...I used to know what a cubit was
Well don't worry about that Noah
When you get that done 
Go out into the world and
Collect all of the animals in the world by twos
Male and female, and put them into the ark
Right!
Who is this really?

What's going on?
How come you want me to do all these weird things?
I'm going to destory the world
Right!
Am I on Candid Camera?

Well, Anand is just a genius 

Even I would really have to buckle down to easily understand all of Anand's moves in that game. The basic philosophy though is that white can hope to put pressure on the e pawn and simultaneously find a gradual way for his bishops to get into the game and pile on the pressure, which Anand so masterfully did. They may have looked passive, but they have tons of potential so don't ever underestimate them; they can jump into life rather suddenly sometimes. Indeed white needs to be patient here to quell black's play and demonstrate the strength of his bishops. Note if black magically still had his dark squared bishop in the position with the pawn on e4 he would have much better attacking chances, so black also made a concession in that he gave up a strong potential attacker on the kingside.