which is better light squared or dark squared bishop

discuss.

It depends on the position a good bishop does not have pawns block its way.

Only rookie players ask this question.  Every experienced player knows that the dark squared bishop is always better especially when it comes to mating and killing.  THe white squared bishop always has inner turmoil when faced with the decision to kill another seeing as this goes against it's moral beliefs.

What a great insight!

they both have their uses

 Very funny.  Although to some this could be considered a racist comment, but I'm not going into that.  Actually, Divineknight is correct.  It depends on the situation and whether or not your pawns are blocking the bishop in.  In the past, if two people reached an endgame with bishops of the opposite colors, then it was customary to not even try to find a win and simply offer a draw. But in recent years, that has been dropped because many top players have started experimenting with different ideas of using the opposite colored bishops to their advantage.  Another factor to consider when you are deciding which bishop is better in an endgame is what color the square your pawn will be promoting on.  I fyour pawn is promoting on a light square and your bishop is a dark square bishop then you had better know what you're doing. Even some top Grand Masters have drawn won games because they blundered this advantage away with the wrong move.  Although I know this is a discussion board, I think it only fair to say their are many books out there that discuss this very topic.  If you are honestly interested in this subject check out uscfsales dot com.  They have hundreds of chess books to choose from.

Definitely depends on the game situation. Although I think the white bishop in the Italian and Spanish Games is a bit more valuable.

Are you stupid, Taflan?

i say the light colored square in shogi is better. just a bit of humor.

As white, I usually think the light squared bishop is better.  As black, the dark squared. 

Yes, black's challenge is to properly develop his white-squared bishop.

I agree with Jythier, although with black it's less true but probably still true. In the Italian game white's bishop aims at the center and kingside and same for in the queen's gambit where the bishop is on d3. g5 is generally a good square for the bishop if no bishop is blocking the pin but if there is its usefulness is severely decreased. On f4 the bishop may look good but usually it doesn't have much prospects here because although the diagonal looks similar to the one of a bishop on c4, that one is mainly good because it aims at the king and usually pins the f pawn. The Bishop on f4 doesn't really hit anything except some center and queenside squares, which again look nice, but it doesn't fit into a plan so well. On b2 it aims for the kingside but it could become easily blocked by the center pawns, so it's hard to activate the bishop without hindering the central control. So in genereal, it's just alot harder for the queen's bishop to be effective. That's kind of a challenge for white, to make his dark squared bishop about as good as the light one.

It depends on whether you are playing White or Black. For both sides, the king bishop has a hair more value at the start; this is a white-diagonals bishop for White and a dark-diagonals bishop for Black. The reason is because this is the bishop which in many openings can aim at the traditional weak spots, the king bishop pawn for the uncastled king (f2, f7) and the king rook pawn for the king-side castled king (h2, h7). Likewise, these are the bishops which can pin the enemy knight against the uncastled king in the early going, a slightly stronger pin than the one pinning a knight to the queen. Other than that, there is no intrinsic advantage. 

That depends and varies. But a Good Bishop is better than a Bad Bishop ...usually.

The topic can be intelligently discussed but 99% of the chess.com population would be better off working on their chess.

Still, it's better than "Which is your favorite piece" or " A bishop is worth 4 points right?"

I sincerely hope this joke doesn't have any racist elements to it. Have I got the completely wrong end of the stick, and it's just an innocent bit of fun?

I suggest an addendum to the thread posting process whereby the user is taken to a screen reading "Stop! Are you about to ask a stupid question?" with links to the answers to the which is better questions, and the famously silly 'should white and black alternate first move' question.

Never heard of the concepts of light and dark in the moral context?  Been living under a rock?

Honestly, people shouldn't have to defend themselves against ridiculous racism accusations all the time.  The oversensitive fool's making said accusations need to stop looking for opportunities to be offended and show off how PC they are.

OK, sorry, calm down. It seems obvious now, but it didn't at the time. I didn't accuse him of racism, just inquired in the politest possible manner. What makes you think I was "looking for an opportunity to be offended", do you have access to my mind? I could just as easily say about you that you need to "stop looking for an opportunity to lecture the easily offended on how much of a fool they are".