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Bishops move diagonally. They can move as many spaces along a diagonal that are not blocked by friendly pieces.
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Bishops capture enemy pieces by occupying the square on which they reside, provided that they are in the Bishop's range.
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Each player has one Bishop on the light squares, and one Bishop on the dark squares.
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Since Bishops can never "change the color" of the square on which they operate, a player will be surrendering some "control" of those colored squares once the Bishop is traded.
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In the animation shown above, each purple dot is a valid destination square for the bishop. The yellow dot shown immediately afterwards is the source square where the bishop just departed.
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The first Bishop Sting a new player usually experiences in Trice's Chess is when a knowledgeable player takes advantage of the Pawn-Pushing newbie.
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It is not uncommon in "regular chess" to advance the two Pawns shown above onto their corresponding squares on an 8x8 chessboard.
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Maybe the experienced player is playing a few games against a new Trice's Chess player, and he noticed the newbie doing this "all the time" with the white pawns.
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So, black plays his Pawn to b6 on his first move, and waits. If white plays as shown in the animation above, the black Bishop issues a Flank Check.
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Blocking with the c-pawn only delays the inevitable by one move, so white must lose either the Archbishop, Chancellor, or Queen for black's Bishop.
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White could have avoided such an oversight by playing Nc3 before sending both Pawns forward. That way, Nc3-e2 could have blocked the flank check.
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Each side must be vigilent in Trice's Chess, because the minor pieces offer strongert support of one another on the 10x8 board.
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As shown in the animation above, after just three moves, the white Bishop, protected by the white Knight, is attacking the black Queen.
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Furthermore, the black Queen is helpless! Only the black Chancellor and Archbishop can intervene and sacrifice themselves to save the Queen.
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White gains a huge advantage once either black piece steps in front of the Bishop's diagonal strike.
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If you ever encounter a chess player that thinks the minor pieces are weak on the 10x8 board, show them this example. In Trice's Chess, the coordination of the major and minor pieces enables the minor pieces to make serious threats that are non-existant in regular 8x8 chess.
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The animation shown above replays the 8x8 chess opening known as the Ruy Lopez (one of the oldest known openings, described in 1561).
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Observe how the white Bishop is lunging to threaten the enemy Knight nearest to it on the c6 square. Notice the position of the Bishop relative to the Knight.
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The Bishop is threatening the Knight from the "outside" or "exterior," aiming diagonally towards the c6 knight. Compare this to the position of the Bishop in the previous 10x8 animation, which is clearly striking at the interior of the board.
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On the wider 10x8 board, the Knights support the Bishops better, and their "interior strikes" are therefore more potent than the 8x8 Ruy Lopez "exterior" strike.
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The notion of the "interior Bishop strike" in 8x8 chess is not just limited to one particular opening.
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The animation above shows the Nimzo-Indian Defence which was pioneered by Aaron Nimzowitsch in the 1920s.
Here the black Bishop lunges as it threatens the enemy Knight on the c3 square.
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Again, the Bishop is threatening the Knight from the "outside" or "exterior," aiming diagonally towards the c3 knight.
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You can see from both examples, with the wider 10x8 board, the Knights better support the Bishops, and their "interior strikes" are therefore more potent than their 8x8 chess "exterior" strikes.
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Another motiff available to the Bishop is referred to as skewering the opponent.
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In the animation shown above, the black Bishop attacks the white Chancellor, but if the Chancellor moves out of the way, then the white Queen will be struck by its diagonal attack.
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Lining up two more powerful pieces of your enemy in this fashion is a skewer and results in a big advantage for the side whose Bishop is making this type of attack.
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Make sure that if there is any skewering going on, you're the one that's doing it!
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