Which Chess Pieces Only Move Diagonally? One Piece, and It Never Changes Color
One piece lives on the diagonals, one visits them only to capture, and one does everything. Ten minutes to get it straight.
The bishop moves diagonally and nothing else. That makes it the answer: of the six piece types, the bishop is the only one limited to diagonals, and you get 2 per side, 4 on the board. Everything else either ignores the diagonals completely (the rook) or treats them as one option among several (the queen, the king, and the pawn when it captures).
Ask a beginner to describe the bishop and you'll usually get "it goes sideways, sort of, at an angle." Correct, but incomplete. The bishop is also color-locked. The one that starts on a light square finishes the game on a light square, 40 moves later, in some other corner. That single rule explains most of what makes bishops strong and about half of what makes them frustrating.
The bishop is nailed to one color for the whole game
White's bishops start on c1 and f1. Black's on c8 and f8. At move one, neither bishop can go anywhere: the c1 bishop is boxed in by the pawns on b2 and d2, and the f1 bishop has the same problem on its side. Most players free one bishop in the first four or five moves with a pawn push and leave the other one dozing untill the middlegame. That's normal, and it's why so many club games turn on which bishop got out first. I go deeper on the piece itself in this guide to the bishop in chess.
Here's the part that sticks with kids. A board has 64 squares, 32 light and 32 dark. Each bishop is stuck with half of them. So a light-squared bishop can never attack, block, or capture anything on a dark square. Not once. Not ever. If your opponent's king is camped on a dark square and your only minor piece is the light-squared bishop, you're not delivering mate with it. Full stop.
And if you're counting material at the start, the bishop is two of the 32 pieces on the board, four bishops total across both sides. The piece count in chess breaks that down properly.
Piece by piece: who touches the diagonals, and how
This is the table I'd draw on a napkin for anyone learning the game. "Diagonal" in the second column means the piece can travel along a diagonal; the third column covers straight lines and jumps.
| Piece | Diagonal movement | Straight or jump movement | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bishop | Any distance, any diagonal | None | Diagonal only |
| Queen | Any distance, any diagonal | Any distance, files and ranks | Both |
| King | One square, all four diagonals | One square, files and ranks | Both |
| Pawn | Capture only, one square forward-left or forward-right | Forward one square, or two on its first move | Forward mover with a diagonal bite |
| Knight | None | L-shape jump, two and one | Neither |
| Rook | None | Any distance, files and ranks | Straight only |
The pawn is the one that trips people up, and I've watched a dozen arguments at club night start exactly there. A pawn capturing on a diagonal hasn't become a diagonal mover. It's a forward mover that eats sideways. Different thing. The full set of chess pieces and their habits is worth reading alongside this table, because the pawn rule makes more sense once you see how the others behave.
How many squares a bishop really covers
Put a lone bishop in the middle of an empty board and it controls 13 squares. Drop the same bishop in a corner and it controls 7. Same piece, same rules, half the reach. That's the whole argument for active bishops in one sentence.
| Piece placed on d4, empty board | Squares it can move to | Of those, diagonal |
|---|---|---|
| Bishop | 13 | 13 |
| Queen | 27 | 13 |
| Rook | 14 | 0 |
| King | 8 | 4 |
| Knight | 8 | 0 |
| Pawn (white, on d4) | 2 captures | 2 |
The long diagonal from a1 to h8 is 8 squares end to end, and it's the busiest diagonal on the board. A bishop parked on b2 or g2 (the fianchetto setup) stares straight down it at the enemy corner. On paper that looks harmless. In practice it constrains everything your opponent does with their king side.
The bishop pair is worth a nudge more than 6 points
Standard counting says a bishop is 3 points, so two bishops are 6. I'd take the pair over two knights in almost any open position, and most strong club players would agree. The chess piece values table will tell you a bishop and a knight are equal, which is true piece for piece and slightly false as a pair.
Concession time: in a locked, pawn-heavy position I'll swap a bishop for a knight without blinking. Bishops need air. Bishops on a board full of blocked pawn chains are just expensive spectators, and a knight will dance around them all afternoon.
Teaching the diagonals in about ten minutes
Here's the drill I'd run with a kid or a new adult player. Empty board, one bishop on d4, a pile of coins. Ask them to cover every square the bishop can reach. They'll count 13. Then slide the bishop to a1 and ask again. Seven. The number changes; the shape never does.
Second step: put the bishop back on d4 and ask which of their own pawns sit on its diagonals. That's usually the moment it clicks, because the answer is often "three of them," and suddenly the bishop isn't a bad piece, it's a blocked one. If you want the rest of the beginner curriculum in order, my learn chess page starts from the board and works up.
Third step, for the ambitious: pawn to g3, bishop to g2, and let them watch what that bishop does to the h1 to a8 diagonal once the pawns clear out. It's the cheapest lesson in chess.
Spin Master Games Cardinal Classics Chess Teacher
- Includes: Chessboard, 32 Chess Pieces, Instructions
The listing says every piece prints its name, its direction, and how many squares it travels, and the box includes the board, 32 pieces and instructions, ages 8 and up, which is the closest thing to training wheels a chess set gets.
Standard flat-bottomed plastic pieces on a folding cardboard board, ages 6 and up, with no printed move guides on the pieces, so it's the plain set you graduate to once the rules have stuck.
A 3.75 inch king on 2.25 inch squares, 34 pieces counting the two extra queens, a roll-up vinyl board and a carry bag, and the listing says it meets FIDE and USCF tournament proportions, so it's the one that lasts from first lesson to first tournament.
One thing to do tonight
Set up a board, drop a single bishop on d4, and count its 13 squares out loud. Then look at which of your pawns are sitting on those diagonals, because that's the real reason your bishop feels useless in the opening. Move one pawn, and watch what happens. <<
>>Questions people ask me
Which chess piece can only move diagonally?
The bishop. It moves any number of empty squares along a diagonal and cannot move sideways or straight forward. Each player starts with two of them, one on a light square and one on a dark square.
Do pawns move diagonally?
Only when they capture. A pawn travels straight ahead (one square, or two on its first move) and takes an enemy piece one square on a forward diagonal. It never moves diagonally into an empty square.
Can a bishop switch to the other color?
No. A bishop that starts on a light square stays on light squares for the whole game, and the same goes for the dark-squared one. That's why a lone bishop can't attack half the board, and it's the main reason the bishop pair matters.