Knights vs. Bishops

The Amateur's Mind: Turning Chess Misconceptions Into Chess Mastery (1999)

2nd Edition/Expanded

by IM Jeremy Silman

In the chapter "The Battle Between Bishops and Knights" the author sets forth ten rules.

Rule 1 - Bishops and Knights are both worth three points (as far as point count is concerned). It's up to you to manipulate the position and make whatever piece you own more valuable.

Rule 2 - Bishops are best in open positions where pawns don't block their diagonals.

Rule 3 - Bishops are very strong in end games where both sides have passed pawns that are dashing to their respective queening squares. In such situations, the long-range capabilities of a Bishop make it far superior to the slow, short-range Knight.

Rule 4 - The term 'bad bishop" means that your Bishop is situated on the same color square as your center pawns (which block it and limit its activity). If you have such a Bishop you usually want to do one of three things: trade it for a piece of equal value, get the pawns off the color of your Bishop, or get the Bishop outside the pawn chain.

Rule 5 - A Bishop's weakness is that it is stuck on one color for the whole game; anything resting on the other color is safe from its attention. Two Bishops work together very well because they control both colored diagonals, thereby negating this "one color" weakness.

Rule 6 - Knights love closed positions with locked pawns. Their ability to jump over other pieces makes them very valuable in such situations.

Rule 7 - Knights usually stand better in the center of the board. One old chess adage goes: "A Knight on the rim is dim." There are two reasons for this: The first is that a Knight on one side's rim must make several moves to reach an endangered area on the other wing. A Knight in the middle can jump to either side at will. The other reason for this distrust of the rim is that a Knight simply controls fewer squares there.

Rule 8 - Since Knights are not long range pieces, they need to have secure, advanced homes to be effective. These homes are called support points.

Rule 9 - Knights are superior to Bishops in an endgame if all the pawns are on one side of the board. This is because the Bishop's long range powers no longer have meaning while the Knight's ability to go either color square means that there is no safe haven for the enemy King or pawns.

Rule 10 - The first official World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, pioneered work on the minor pieces. He stated that the way to beat Knights was to deprive them of any advanced support points. Then they would be inactive and, as a result, inferior to Bishops. The reverse, of course, is that if you possess Knights, you must strive as hard as you can to create support points for them.

Note: Thanks to Mark for motivating me to re-investigate the Knights vs. Bishops game. I have not thought this much about Knights vs. Bishops since I got demolished in the GenCon chess tournament several years ago.