I know that most chess books claim that bishops and knights are equal.
Some define that as both being worth 3 points or equals to 3 pawns.

However I feel that bishops are better than knights and here my
reasons why:

1) In most games between strong players, you see the idea of having
the advantage of 2 bishops. Have 2 bishops means you can control
(attack) diagonals of the same color. These can become a very strong
weapon also known as Horowitz Bishops because when aimed at the
opponents king, they complement each other. If one pawn in his king
moves to defend against one, the other becomes stronger since it
controls the opposite colored squares. Examples of this occurs in the
Ruy Lopez and some positions of the Semi-Slav defense but there are
numerous cases when this happens. Also having two bishops becomes a
strong endgame advantage and is usually compensation for a pawn
structure weakness. Two bishops also become strong as the position
opens up.

Now who strives to get the two knights??? There are hardly any games
between GMs where one side wants to get two knights. And if one
players does get the 2 knights, and his opponents has two bishops,
then you will usually find him exchanging one of the bishops off
instead trying to maintain two knights vs. two bishops.

2) Bishops move farther than knights in one moves. If you place your
knight on the edge of an empty board, that it will take several moves
(jumps) before it reaches the other side. Whereas, the bishop can
move to the other side in one move.

3) Generally speaking, they say bishops are better in the open
positions and knights are better in closed positions. This idea can
be thought as being true. However, I believe it is easier for the
player with the bishop to make it stronger by opening the position.
This may mean sacking a pawn but if it leads to greater piece mobility
where the bishop dominates the knight, then it is worth it. On the
other hand, it is much more difficult to close a position. Closing a
position requires the cooperated effort of both players. But if you
are a player with the bishop, you don't have to cooperate and can keep
the tension in the pawn structure and release it later to open up the
position. The bottom line is that once a position is very open with
open lines and diagonals, you can't close it. But if it is closed,
you can open up diagonals by sacking pawns or even pieces to activate
your bishop to help attack the opponent's king.

4) In the opening phases, knights might be better since they can be
developed faster. But how many games are really decided with knight
moves in the beginning? Most games move on to the middlegame/endgame
and this is where the Bishop dominates. In the endgame when the
queens get traded, the value of knights drastically drops. Knights
like to work with queens because they have good cooperation. Lasker
stated this idea in his manual on chess. However, in the endgame, the
value of knights sufficiently decrease since there are no more queens
and less pieces on the board.

5) Knights are supporting pieces. What that means it is very
difficult to attack with just a knight. Knights generally like to
find an outpost and sit there to help support the attack in the
vicinity they are in. However, if the action moves to the other side
of the board or lets say the opponent's king castles to the other side
of the board, then you have to spend time move that knight over to
where the action is happening. On the other hand the bishop, can move
their quite quickly and can eye point sides of the board from squares
such as d3, d6, e3, e6, e4, e5, d4, and d5. Also knights need
outposts and the strength of the knight is based upon this outpost's
location. Knights on rim are grim. Meaning knights on the edge or
corner of the board are pretty bad since they control less squares
than if they were in the center. However, all it takes to remove the
knight from that location is a pawn. You just need to move a pawn to
control that square attacking the knight and removing the outpost. So
basically the knight has to move and potentially loses its strength.

6) The fianchetto bishop. A Bishop on b2, g2, b7, or g7 is said to be
very strong since it controls a central diagonal. There are several
openings (Hypermodern openings, ruy lopez zaitsev, and sicilian, etc.)
which use a fianchettoed bishop. Alot of plans are based on the power
of this bishop. Have you ever heard of a fianchettoed knight? I
don't many players striving to get their knight to one of those
squares and leaving it there. In fact in some games of the Kings
Indian, the bishop on g7 is so strong (since it controls squares near
your king) then players are willing to sacrifice the exchange for it.
I believe that in one Candidate game between Taimanov and Fischer,
Taimanov took Fischer's Kings Indian bishop on g7 with a rook.

7) There are few special cases where a knight is better than a bishop.
But as long as the chess player knows and understands these
scenarios, he just needs to avoid them to keep his bishop(s) more
powerful than the opponent's knight(s). Books claim that bishops are
better than knights in endgames with pawns on both sides of the board.
So this is something to keep in mind. But knights tend to be equal
in positions with pawns on one side. But again this is based on
removing material off the board in the endgame and requires the
cooperation of both players. Hence if you have a bishop, you just
need to keep pawns on both sides of the board. Also having a rook
usually magnifies the domination between a bishop and the knight.
Knights are also better than a bad Bishop (ones where your own pawns
are on the same color square as your bishop). So just make sure that
pawns don't get placed on the same color as your bishop. This leads
to another advantage of the two bishops. When you have two bishops,
you have the ability to trade one of them off. What that means is
that you can always move the pawns to different colored squares to
gain an advantage. And when the time is right, just exchange off your
bad bishop and you will be left a good bishop which will dominate the
opponent's knight (if he has one).

8) Finally several GMs and former World Champions have preference for
Bishops. Fischer for example prefers Bishops to knights. If you
notice in his games, he tried to create a Bishop vs. Knight endgame
where he had the bishop. Spassy also liked Bishops as did Tal.
Petrosian seems to be the only former world champion that like Knights
but from his results, you can see that he was only good at drawing
games.

In conclusion, based upon my reasons stated above, I believe that
Bishops are better than knights.

Knights are usually stronger in first half of game, when pawn skeletons are
still predominant. Placing (and using) bishops effectively in the opening is
one of the challenges for a club player. Bishops are stronger in endgames,
with their long range.

You can mate with a king and two bishops, or a king, bishop, and knight, but
NOT with a king and two knights.

In article ,
(Alex Dvorak) wrote:

I know that most chess books claim that bishops and knights are equal.
Some define that as both being worth 3 points or equals to 3 pawns.


Flawed premise: most books say bishops are usually a little better than
knights, depending on the position. Typically bishop=3.25 pawns,
knight=3 pawns. Of course, in an open position bishops are better and in
a closed position knights are better (in general).

--Harold Buck


"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

Now who strives to get the two knights??? There are hardly any games
between GMs where one side wants to get two knights. And if one
players does get the 2 knights, and his opponents has two bishops,
then you will usually find him exchanging one of the bishops off
instead trying to maintain two knights vs. two bishops.

I have written to Boris Spassky telling him he was wrong all along, and
suggested to him that he was cheating! No one expected the minor exchange!
Spassky made a living, Alex, from getting rid of that K-side Knight when he
had the opportunity to press on the K-side himself. I should probably also
abuse Fischer who pulled the same trick in the Spanish Inquisition at move
5, playing the exchange variation. Cordially, Phil

"The Masked Bishop" wrote in message y.com...

Knights are usually stronger in first half of game,
when pawn skeletons are still predominant. Placing
(and using) bishops effectively in the opening is
one of the challenges for a club player. Bishops
are stronger in endgames, with their long range.

You can mate with a king and two bishops, or a king,
bishop, and knight, but
NOT with a king and two knights.

On the other hand a knight is (most of the time)
better than a bishop in the ending, when pawns
form a compact group, say on one wing only.
When pawns are on both wings then knight has
a problem since it affects only a small radius
around itself, it cannot attack nor defend a pawn
from afar.

Chigorin and Spassky(yes, Spassky too!) enjoyed
playing with knights, they occasionally were
striving at having knights against bishops. They
belonged to a minority. Dawid Janowski and
Akiba Rubinstein liked two bishops.

Wlod

"The Masked Bishop" wrote in message
.com...
... pawn skeletons ...
Funny collocation. I don't read english chess books, so when I've first
seen this collocation I thought about pawn bones.

Aren't _pawn structures_ more suitable?

"Pawn skeleton" is a somewhat popular term here for pawn structure.

On 16 Nov 2003 18:27:20 -0800, (Alex Dvorak) wrote:

I know that most chess books claim that bishops and knights are equal.
Some define that as both being worth 3 points or equals to 3 pawns.

However I feel that bishops are better than knights and here my
reasons why:

1) In most games between strong players, you see the idea of having
the advantage of 2 bishops. Have 2 bishops means you can control
(attack) diagonals of the same color. These can become a very strong
weapon also known as Horowitz Bishops because when aimed at the
opponents king, they complement each other. If one pawn in his king
moves to defend against one, the other becomes stronger since it
controls the opposite colored squares. Examples of this occurs in the
Ruy Lopez and some positions of the Semi-Slav defense but there are
numerous cases when this happens. Also having two bishops becomes a
strong endgame advantage and is usually compensation for a pawn
structure weakness. Two bishops also become strong as the position
opens up.

Now who strives to get the two knights??? There are hardly any games
between GMs where one side wants to get two knights. And if one
players does get the 2 knights, and his opponents has two bishops,
then you will usually find him exchanging one of the bishops off
instead trying to maintain two knights vs. two bishops.


Some comments:

Just because two bishops are often better than knight and bishop or
two knights does not necessarily mean that a bishop is better than a
knight.

Whether a bishop is better than a knight depends on other factors in
the position most notably the pawn structure. Bishops can have long
range impact on more of the board whether in the center or on a flank
as long as there aren't pawns blocking the way. They key to improving
the power of a bishop is to avoid locked pawn structures in the
center. Knights impact more squares when they are centralized so the
key to improving their power is to create outposts where knights can
be protected in the center and cannot be driven away by pawn
attacks. This also applies with two bishops vs two knights. If the
pawns structure is fixed and pawns block bishops from operating freely
and the knights have outposts in the center that they cannot be driven
from then I would much rather have the two knights.

2) Bishops move farther than knights in one moves. If you place your
knight on the edge of an empty board, that it will take several moves
(jumps) before it reaches the other side. Whereas, the bishop can
move to the other side in one move.


This can make the difference in an endgame when a bishop is generally
superior to a knight when there are pawns on both sides of the board.
However, there are always exceptions to this. It always depends on
the placement of all the other pieces and pawns whether a bishop or
knight is better.

3) Generally speaking, they say bishops are better in the open
positions and knights are better in closed positions. This idea can
be thought as being true. However, I believe it is easier for the
player with the bishop to make it stronger by opening the position.
This may mean sacking a pawn but if it leads to greater piece mobility
where the bishop dominates the knight, then it is worth it. On the
other hand, it is much more difficult to close a position. Closing a
position requires the cooperated effort of both players. But if you
are a player with the bishop, you don't have to cooperate and can keep
the tension in the pawn structure and release it later to open up the
position. The bottom line is that once a position is very open with
open lines and diagonals, you can't close it. But if it is closed,
you can open up diagonals by sacking pawns or even pieces to activate
your bishop to help attack the opponent's king.


Yes the side with the bishop can usually open the position up by
sacrificing. Then we move into the discussion about whether there is
sufficent compensation for the sacrifice.

4) In the opening phases, knights might be better since they can be
developed faster. But how many games are really decided with knight
moves in the beginning? Most games move on to the middlegame/endgame
and this is where the Bishop dominates. In the endgame when the
queens get traded, the value of knights drastically drops. Knights
like to work with queens because they have good cooperation. Lasker
stated this idea in his manual on chess. However, in the endgame, the
value of knights sufficiently decrease since there are no more queens
and less pieces on the board.


I wouldn't say the fact that knights can be defveloped faster is as
important as that in most openings it is usually clearer what the best
squares knights are as compared with bishops. A GM (I don't remember
which one) once explained that as the reason for the maxim "knights
before bishops".

5) Knights are supporting pieces. What that means it is very
difficult to attack with just a knight. Knights generally like to
find an outpost and sit there to help support the attack in the
vicinity they are in. However, if the action moves to the other side
of the board or lets say the opponent's king castles to the other side
of the board, then you have to spend time move that knight over to
where the action is happening. On the other hand the bishop, can move
their quite quickly and can eye point sides of the board from squares
such as d3, d6, e3, e6, e4, e5, d4, and d5. Also knights need
outposts and the strength of the knight is based upon this outpost's
location. Knights on rim are grim. Meaning knights on the edge or
corner of the board are pretty bad since they control less squares
than if they were in the center. However, all it takes to remove the
knight from that location is a pawn. You just need to move a pawn to
control that square attacking the knight and removing the outpost. So
basically the knight has to move and potentially loses its strength.


Yes, knights are slower to redeploy to the other side of the board;
however, they can jump over pawns and pawns structures a bishop is
useless. As far as being just a supporting piece vs. an attacking
piece: I think that knight forks occur much more often than bishop
forks and the same holds true for smothered mates with a knight vs.
smothered mated with a bishop.

6) The fianchetto bishop. A Bishop on b2, g2, b7, or g7 is said to be
very strong since it controls a central diagonal. There are several
openings (Hypermodern openings, ruy lopez zaitsev, and sicilian, etc.)
which use a fianchettoed bishop. Alot of plans are based on the power
of this bishop. Have you ever heard of a fianchettoed knight? I
don't many players striving to get their knight to one of those
squares and leaving it there. In fact in some games of the Kings
Indian, the bishop on g7 is so strong (since it controls squares near
your king) then players are willing to sacrifice the exchange for it.
I believe that in one Candidate game between Taimanov and Fischer,
Taimanov took Fischer's Kings Indian bishop on g7 with a rook.


Remember that Fischer won his candidate's match with Taimanov 6-0 so
using his maneuver as a recommendation might not be wise. I do see
your point that there are situations where a bishop can be stronger
than a rook. This is especially true when the bishop is fianchettoed
and the pawn position in the center is open already or can be opened.
However, there are also positions say where a a knight reaches the
sixth rank on the c,d, e or f file when a knight is worth more than a
rook.

7) There are few special cases where a knight is better than a bishop.
But as long as the chess player knows and understands these
scenarios, he just needs to avoid them to keep his bishop(s) more
powerful than the opponent's knight(s). Books claim that bishops are
better than knights in endgames with pawns on both sides of the board.
So this is something to keep in mind. But knights tend to be equal
in positions with pawns on one side. But again this is based on
removing material off the board in the endgame and requires the
cooperation of both players. Hence if you have a bishop, you just
need to keep pawns on both sides of the board. Also having a rook
usually magnifies the domination between a bishop and the knight.
Knights are also better than a bad Bishop (ones where your own pawns
are on the same color square as your bishop). So just make sure that
pawns don't get placed on the same color as your bishop. This leads
to another advantage of the two bishops. When you have two bishops,
you have the ability to trade one of them off. What that means is
that you can always move the pawns to different colored squares to
gain an advantage. And when the time is right, just exchange off your
bad bishop and you will be left a good bishop which will dominate the
opponent's knight (if he has one).

8) Finally several GMs and former World Champions have preference for
Bishops. Fischer for example prefers Bishops to knights. If you
notice in his games, he tried to create a Bishop vs. Knight endgame
where he had the bishop. Spassy also liked Bishops as did Tal.
Petrosian seems to be the only former world champion that like Knights
but from his results, you can see that he was only good at drawing
games.

Fischer also liked to play the white side of the exchange version of
the Ruy Lopez when he gave up a bishop for a knight on move four.
There really aren't absolutes with regard to bishop vs. knight.


In conclusion, based upon my reasons stated above, I believe that
Bishops are better than knights.

In conclusion, the value of a knight or bishop depends on the factors
in the position.

"The Masked Bishop" wrote
You can mate with a king and two bishops, or a king, bishop, and knight, but
NOT with a king and two knights.

Well, one CAN, but not force it.

True. But you need active help from your opponent. It's hard enough mating
with two bishops or a bishop/knight.


"sandirhodes" wrote in message
news:Ybhub.7243$SV2.173@okepread01...

"The Masked Bishop" wrote
You can mate with a king and two bishops, or a king, bishop, and knight,
but
NOT with a king and two knights.

Well, one CAN, but not force it.