The Bishop Chess Piece

“The Bishop moves along either diagonal.”

“Notice that the Bishop always moves to squares of the same color as the one it starts on.“

“Each side begins the game with two Bishops: One that moves on light squares and one that moves on dark squares.“

“Like the Queen, the Bishop cannot move over another piece.“

“As usual, if the blocking piece belongs to the opposing color, the Bishop can capture it simply by moving to that square.“

“Because it attacks fewer squares and is restricted to light or dark squares the Bishop is a weaker piece than the Queen or Rook.”

A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king’s knight and the king, the other between the queen’s knight and the queen. In algebraic notation the starting squares are c1 and f1 for White’s bishops, and c8 and f8 for Black’s bishops.

The canonical chessmen are now dated back to Howard Staunton and the Staunton chess set. The piece’s deep groove symbolizes a bishop’s (or abbot’s) mitre. The groove originates from the original form of the piece, an elephant (the groove represented the elephant’s tusks). This groove was interpreted differently in different countries as the game moved to Europe; in France, for example, the groove was taken to be a jester’s cap, hence in France the bishop is called “fou” (the fool). In some Slavic languages (e.g. Czech/Slovak) the bishop is called “st?elec/strelec”, which directly translates to English as a “shooter” meaning an archer.