Author: Albert Silver
Date: 13:31:58 06/10/98
Go up one level in this thread
On June 10, 1998 at 14:09:08, Bruce Moreland wrote:
>
>On June 10, 1998 at 12:59:52, Johanes Suhardjo wrote:
>
>>Is a bad bishop only the one behind the pawns with the same square
>>color? Is the one in front of the pawns not bad?
>
>This is an extremely hard question.
>
>A bad bishop is a bishop that can't participate fully, because of the
>pawn structure, usually your own pawns and not the opponent's.
>
>I have seen a bishop be bad because exactly one friendly pawn is
>inhibiting the bishop.
>
>I have seen bishops that are excellent even though many friendly pawns
>are on its color, this is usually the bishop in front of the pawns case
>you mention.
>
>I think that this is one area where humans have put a label on something
>without really having a firm definition of what they are describing.
>There are cases where a human would say, "that bishop is bad", but you
>can make minor changes to the pawn structure, the bishop's location, the
>other minor pieces on the board, or the general tactical situation, and
>the bishop suddenly becomes a monster.
>
>bruce
Yes, although there are no absolute clear-cut ways to determine this,
Euwe and Kramer (from their superb books: "The Middle-Game", which I
believe was recently reprinted in algebraic notation) define the
difference between the good bishop and active bishop. The bad bishop can
be very strong if it can work outside of the radius of it's own pawns,
hence the strength of the bad bishop in the advance variation of the
Caro-Kann after 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5! (before closing locking up the
house with ...e6). Thus, though it's still bad, it is quite active. This
strength though is generally temporary and the side with this bishop
should try to maximize it's effect through active operations. The more
pieces that go off the board, the more problematic that active but bad
bishop will become, as it's activity is nullified and in the endgame it
will be a real cross to bear. Still, these are just some general rules
of thumb and are subject to any number of exceptions (as always).
Albert Silver
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