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FIGURE 2-7: The bishop, blocked by its own pawns and enemy pawns.
However, restricting a bishop with pawns isn’t always effective, because the bishop may be able to capture one of the enemy pawns. Just look at Figures 2-8a and 2-8b to see how (in chess notation, this move is written 1. Bxf3 – see Chapter 6 for details).
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FIGURE 2-8: The bishop pounces on a pawn.
WHAT DO A BISHOP AND AN ELEPHANT HAVE IN COMMON?
The bishop evolved from the elephant, which may be difficult to imagine at first. Elephants don’t have slender waists, at least not the elephants I’ve seen. However, if you think about the ancient Indian soldier sitting atop an elephant and tossing down spears at the enemy, or if you visualize the medieval archer in a castle tower firing arrows down on a hapless foe, you can understand how this development came about. The bishop doesn’t like hand-to-hand fighting and is at its best when attacking from long range. If you think about it, would you rather be shooting arrows safely out of harm’s way or down in the trenches getting trampled? Archers weren’t stupid.
Why, then, is the piece called a bishop and not an archer? Oddly enough, it’s simply because the look of the carved piece resembled a bishop’s miter (the pointed hat that bishops wear) to medieval Europeans. What probably started as an off-hand remark soon became a custom.
Flaunting Her Power: The Queen
The most powerful piece is the queen. A piece’s power is directly related to its mobility, and the queen is the most mobile. Although the queen is the most powerful piece, she must be very careful when engaging enemy forces because she’s so valuable. If rooks or minor pieces attack her, she’s often forced to retreat or be lost. Treat the lady with kid gloves!
Figure 2-9 indicates where the queens are placed at the start of the game.
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FIGURE 2-9: The queens take their seats.
To get an idea of the queen’s strength, just put one in the middle of an empty chessboard – which, by the way, is a situation that will never happen if you’re playing chess by the rules! When placed in the center of the board, the queen can cover 27 squares and can move in eight different directions, which you can see in Figure 2-10.
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FIGURE 2-10: The queen’s reign covers much of the board when placed at the center.
The queen covers fewer squares when placed on the side of the board, so her powers are slightly reduced in that case. However, it’s far too dangerous to post the valuable queen in the center of the board too early in the game, where members of the opposing army can harass her. Far more commonly, you see chess masters post the queen in a more conservative position early and wait to centralize her later, when pieces have been exchanged and the danger to her reduced.
THE BIRTH OF THE QUEEN
The queen evolved from the Indian vizier who was the king’s chief minister or advisor. Originally a weak piece, the queen was given its great powers toward the end of the 15th century. Whether this bestowal was an act of chivalry or just another attempt to speed up the game remains unclear. It seems certain, however, that medieval Europe was accustomed to powerful queens – and this reality can also explain the gender change.
Moving One Square at a Time: The King
The king isn’t the most powerful chess piece (the queen is – see the preceding section for details), but he’s the most important (and in conventional chess sets, he’s the tallest). When someone attacks your king, you must defend him. If your king is attacked and you can’t defend him, then you have checkmate … and the game is over (see Chapter 4 for information on checkmate). But you never actually capture the king; you simply force him to yield. Thousands may die on the battlefield, but royalty respects royalty. (Yet don’t forget that the king can capture, just like the other pieces, by taking over an opponent’s square!)
Figure 2-11 shows where the king resides on the chessboard at the start of the game.
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FIGURE 2-11: The kings, seated on their thrones.
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