How the bishop moves

A bishop moves in straight diagonal lines, as far as it likes, and here is the thing nobody tells beginners: it can only ever reach half the board. The half it started on.

Moves diagonally
One colour for ever
13 squares from the centre
Worth about 3

A bishop slides diagonally, any number of empty squares, forwards or backwards, until something stops it. It captures the first enemy piece it meets on that diagonal and it cannot go past its own.

Thirteen squares, all one colour

A bishop on d4 with the board clear reaches thirteen squares, all of them dark, because d4 is dark.

One colour, for the whole game

Look at the diagram again. Every square the bishop can reach is the same colour as the one it is standing on, and that never changes. There is no legal move in chess that gets a bishop onto the other colour, which means half the board is permanently invisible to it.

That is why you start with two: one light-squared bishop and one dark-squared bishop, which between them cover everything. Trade one off and every square of that colour in your position is suddenly harder to defend, which is the whole idea behind a weak square complex.

Corners are bad for bishops too

Seven squares from a1

The same bishop in the corner: seven squares, one diagonal, and no way to change direction without spending a move.

Why your bishop cannot move at the start

Boxed in behind its own pawns

The bishop on f1 at the start of the game has no legal moves at all. Its two diagonals run straight into e2 and g2, both of them occupied by its own pawns.

This is why the first few moves of almost every chess game include a pawn step in front of a bishop. A bishop needs a diagonal, and a diagonal needs a pawn out of the way. Moving the e-pawn or the d-pawn opens one bishop each, which is most of what development means in practice.

The other way to solve it is the fianchetto: push the b-pawn or the g-pawn one square and put the bishop on the long diagonal behind it.

Two bishops are worth more than two of anything else

A single bishop is worth about three pawns, the same as a knight. A pair of bishops, both still on the board, is worth noticeably more than that, because together they cover both colours and a piece that runs from one bishop tends to run onto the other. Strong players treat "winning the bishop pair" as a small but permanent advantage and will spend a tempo to get it.

Black to move. The bishop is a long-range piece, and long-range pieces punish two enemy pieces standing on one line.

Show the answer

53.a7 53...Rc1+ 54.Kb4 54...Rxc7

The line ends with the pattern paying off in material. The position is from a real game on Lichess, rated 733 in their puzzle pool, and it is one of the positions in the Skewers skill in the trainer.

Questions people ask

Can a bishop move backwards in chess?

Yes. Bishops move freely along their diagonals in all four directions, forwards and backwards, and there is no restriction on retreating. The pawn is the only piece in chess that cannot go backwards.

Why can a bishop only move diagonally?

Because that is the move it is given, and the design has a point: the rook covers the ranks and files, the bishop covers the diagonals, and the queen is the two of them at once. It also creates the light and dark square distinction that most positional chess is built on.

Can a bishop change colour?

No. A bishop that starts on a light square stays on light squares for the whole game. The only way to get a second bishop of a colour you no longer cover is to promote a pawn to a bishop, which is legal and vanishingly rare.

Is a bishop better than a knight?

In open positions, usually. In closed positions with fixed pawn chains, usually not. The honest answer is that they are close enough in value that the position decides, and the one reliable rule is that two bishops beat two knights more often than not.

Bishop sits under How the pieces move in the reference. Nearby: