Forums

Horse or bishop?

Sort:
Oldest
oregonpatzer

BlargDragon, just don a blindfold, imagine it's a lady bishop and strike her flank with your crop while you shout "faster, faster!"

BlargDragon
oregonpatzer wrote:

BlargDragon, just don a blindfold, imagine it's a lady bishop and strike her flank with your crop while you shout "faster, faster!"

There's a certain level of abuse that I'd subject clergy to but not horses.

president_max

Normally it's the clergy that carry out the abuse.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/off-topic/the-sad-tale-of-the-pawn

MickinMD

There was a famous 1990's study by Larry Kaufman that analyzed over 80,000,000 positions and concluded the AVERAGE value of the pieces are: Q = 8.75P, R = 5P, B = 3.25P, N = 3.25P, and P=1P.

It also determined that 2 B's in the endgame are worth 0.5P MORE than B + N or 2 N's.

There's a rule of thumb that in the opening and middlegame, a N on your 1st to 3rd rank is worth less than a B, a N on the 4th rank is equal to a B, a N of the 5th rank is greater than a B, a N on the 6th rank is devastating, an N or the 7th or 8th rank is worth less than the 6th rank.  Of course, there are a lot of exceptions to rules of thumb.

It greatly depends on the position.  In general, closed positions favor a N, open positions the B.  For those who say a B vs N endgame favors the B if there are Pawns on both sides of the board, look at this game, which I won with a N because my opponent's B was useless in the endgame:

 

oregonpatzer

GM Andy Soltis wrote a piece on this once where he concluded that if there are ten or more pawns on the board, a knight is better, and if not...

torrubirubi
Beginners love the Knights because the forks.

Better player heard somewhere that the bishop pair is better, so they will go for the bishop pair in any case.

More advanced players will keep the bishops if they can open the position, but will keep the Knights in closed positions. And they will try to avoid the opponent having the bishop pair in open positions by exchanging one knight for one of the opponent's bishop.

They will try to exchange a bad bishop for the good bishop.

Even stronger players will make even more subtitle decisions, for example based on the possibility to have a nice nicely placed close to the King (outpost), or when heading to an endgame.

In endgames with pawns in both sides of the board they will prefer a bishop, which can switch to both sides of the board. But they usually will prefer the Knights if the pawns are all on one side of the board, as a Knights can play on black and white squares, a bishop only knows one colour.
brodkongen

Horse better

 

 

idilis
brodkongen wrote:

Horse better

Finally - wisdom after 5 whole years!

brodkongen

Horse better

Forums
Forum Legend
Following
New Comments
Locked Topic
Pinned Topic