The bishop is one of the chess pieces. With regard to his movements, he can move forward or backward diagonally through all free squares. It should be remembered that chess is a game whose games are played on a board divided into sixty-four squares or squares.
Chess faces two players. Each receives sixteen pieces: among them, two bishops. The bishop cannot move forwards or backwards vertically, nor sideways horizontally. Its movement always takes place diagonally, either upward or downward.
Due to their movements, the bishops remain throughout the game in the same square color in which they began the game, a peculiarity that, although it may seem superficial, distinguishes them from the rest of the pieces. That is to say: if a bishop is located in the white square, it cannot go to a dark square at any time.
Another characteristic of bishop movement that we must take into account is that they cannot jump pieces, but, when encountering a rival piece, they take their place and capture them. In fact, the only one capable of jumping over other pieces is the knight.
Historians say that, in ancient games that preceded the development of chess, bishops did not exist. The piece was added in the 12th century, when chess had already been installed on the European continent.
With respect to its meaning, the bishop piece is the representation of the war or spiritual advisor who aided the royalty. In fact, the shape of its upper end refers to the miter, the typical cap of the bishops.
According to experts, the bishop has a relative value that is three or three and a half points higher than the value of the pawn. When the player has both bishops, the value of each piece increases. Anyway, there are chess players who downplay the importance of bishops and are even willing to sacrifice them as part of their strategy.
Many professional or expert players use the bishop for both their offensive and defensive tactics. The fact that he cannot step on the squares of the opposite color to the one assigned to him at the beginning of each game can be taken as a disadvantage; however, we can always assign him the protection of the cells of his color, with cunning movements that leave him alert to the attacks of the opposing team.
Since it is one of the few pieces that can advance as many spaces as free squares are in its path, some restless people venture to move it as soon as they can and thus unnecessarily expose it to the opponent; something similar happens with the rook, the queen and the knight, since their " agility " breaks with the slowness of chess. Needless to say, impatience often leads to defeat.
In the universe of X-Men comics, there is a character named Lucas Bishop Williepondt who is often addressed simply by Bishop, which in English means "bishop"; in fact, in some translations it is mentioned with this term in Spanish. Its first appearance took place in 1991 and was created by Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio. Bishop is born into an Aboriginal family who fled Australia just before it was destroyed by a nuclear attack and took refuge in the United States.