The bishop and the pawns
A bishop never changes color. If your own pawns stand on its color, it can't get past them, and it can't help attack what stands on the other color either. Such a bishop is called bad. A bishop whose pawns stand on the other color has open diagonals and is called good.
So it is the pawns that decide, above all the ones fixed in the center. That's why the plan for the bishop is almost always about the pawns: which ones can move, and which ones stay.
The French bishop
In the French Defense Black builds a wall with the pawns on d5 and e6, and the bishop on c8 ends up behind it. That is the price of a solid position. In the Caro-Kann Black plays …c6 instead of …e6 and can get the bishop out to f5 before the pawn on e6 closes the road.
What to do with a bad bishop
- Trade it off, preferably for your opponent's good bishop. In the French it is often done with …b6 and …Ba6, which you can follow in the glossary.
- Put it outside the chain. In front of the pawns it can be active, even though it is still called bad.
- Move the pawns to the other color, if you can do it without creating new weaknesses.
- Open the position. When the pawns are traded, the wall disappears.
The side playing against a bad bishop wants the opposite: to keep the pawns fixed on the bishop's color, and to trade the other pieces so that the bad bishop is what remains.
A good bishop at work
In game six of the 1972 World Championship, Black's pawns ended up on c5 and d4 after 20.e4 d4, and there they stayed, on dark squares. Black had no bishop left that could trade off Bobby Fischer's bishop, and it had free play on the light squares. Read about the pawns on the page about pawn structures.
The bad bishop that decided the game
A bad bishop isn't a dead bishop. Mikhail Botvinnik's bishop on b2 stood behind its own pawns for a long time at AVRO 1938.
Eighteen moves later the position had opened up. White had a passed pawn on e6, and Black's queen was blockading it. The bishop on b2 still looked shut in.
Common mistakes
- Pawns on the bishop's color. If you have one bishop left, put your pawns on the other color when you can.
- Trading off the good bishop. Then the bad one is what remains.
- Giving up on the bad bishop. It often defends your own pawns, and when the position opens it can come to life.
Remember
- The pawns decide whether a bishop is good or bad, above all the ones fixed in the center.
- A bad bishop can be traded off, put outside the chain or wait for the position to open.
- Against a bad bishop: keep the pawns fixed and trade the other pieces.
The same goes for the endgame, and there you find a special case: with opposite-colored bishops it is often a draw, even a pawn or two up.
Frequently asked questions
What is a bad bishop?
A bishop whose own pawns stand on squares of its color, so that they block its diagonals. A bishop whose pawns stand on the other color is called good.
Where should the pawns stand if you have one bishop left?
A common rule of thumb is to put the pawns on the other color. Then they complement each other: the pawns take squares of one color and the bishop the other.
Should you trade off your bad bishop?
Often, preferably for your opponent's good bishop. But the bad bishop often defends your own pawns, and sometimes it finds a diagonal outside the pawn chain where it does a lot of good.
Updated November 14, 2026