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The way the Bishop moves on the chessboard complements the way the Rook moves: when the Rook moves horizontally and vertically, the Bishop only moves diagonally.

The Bishop's possible moves

All the possible moves of the Bishop are highlighted here.

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And here is one possible Bishop move.

1..Bf5
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One interesting thing about the Bishop is that it can only control squares of its own color. In this example, the Bishop in d5 can only control white squares.

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Dark-squared Bishop and Light-squared Bishop

Let's go back to the start position. As you can see, in this position, each player has a dark-squared Bishop and a light-squared Bishop.

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The Bishop in c1 is a dark-squared Bishop. It only controls black squares.

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The Bishop in f1 is a light square Bishop. It only controls white squares.

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Now, highlight all the squares controlled by the black Bishop.

Square Quizz

Select the good squares

CHECK
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This is all you need to know for the moment about how the Bishop moves. Later, you will learn how to castle , how it interacts with your own pieces and how to capture the opponent’s pieces in Chess.

But for the moment, if you are learning how to play Chess, you should probably have a look at the way the Queen moves, which combines a Bishop and a Rook in one single piece.

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