Knight >> Bishop
i like horseys
(Note: This is a post that I originally wrote on Substack.)
In chess, there's always the question of whether the knight or the bishop is better. In the point system for pieces in chess, the knight and bishop are worth 3 points, yet it is still widely agreed upon that the bishop is better than the knight. However, I am here to disprove that.
Jumping
The knight can jump. The bishop can't. The queen can't. Being able to jump is something unique to the knight. What this means is that a knight can never be blocked from reaching a specific square, as it is always able to jump over whatever piece is in the way.
DS/LS
Imagine being on an 8-by-8 grid, but only being able to access half the squares on the board. That's exactly what a bishop does. A bishop that presides over the dark squares can never go to the light squares and vice versa. Meanwhile, a knight is free to roam wherever it pleases, alternating between dark squares and light squares with each move. Tying into this,
Q+N vs Q+B
An endgame that occurs in chess is when one side has a queen and a knight and some pawns while the other side has a queen and a bishop and some pawns as well. In this situation, the queen and the knight hold a slight advantage that usually becomes decisive. The knight is able to attack and defend pawns on any square, while the bishop can only attack and defend certain squares. With the greater flexibility of the knight, the side with the knight usually wins.
Sacrifices
Knight sacrifies look much cooler than bishop sacrifices. With bishops, it's quite obvious as there's an open diagonal towards one of the pawns next to the king, e.g. h7 or g7. But with a knight, there are so many different options (e.g. h7, f7, e6) that the sacrifice is unexpected and therefore cooler. Knight sacrifices are also more rarely encountered and therefore cooler.
Studies and other stuff
As a beginner, an underpromotion is one of the most exciting things one can do. Normally, people promote to a queen, but during underpromotion, they promote to a different piece. Many have seen studies of knight underpromotions. But there are very few bishop underpromotions, as the bishop is either a big pawn or a downgraded queen. Chess studies also frequently use the flexibility of the knight to illustrate a cool concept.
OG Horsey <3
Throughout chess, when it was first made, the knight was able to jump how it is today. But the bishop is a different story, as before coming to Europe, it was very limited in the amount of squares it could move to. Essentially, the point is that the bishop needed a buff to be able to be at the same level as the knight, which kind of shows why the knight is better than the bishop (it doesn't need any extra support from the game devs).
Conclusion
In many point systems for chess pieces, the modern version of the bishop is valued slightly higher than the knight. However, this statement clearly does not capture the nuance between the relationship of bishop and knight, as for the reasons laid out above, the knight is clearly better than the bishop.