Guide to Chess 960 - Part 4: Adjacent Bishops in the Corner

In Part 3 I showed some common examples of undefended pawns in the opening. Today I will show another common opening pattern, adjacent Bishops in the corner. This is when your Bishops start side-by-side in one corner of the board. This is a great example of Bishops not needing to move to be considered developed. They can influence the position from their starting squares. 

The easiest way to play these positions in my experience is to start by opening your center-most Bishop first followed by opening the Bishop in the corner. This will ensure that you can efficiently activate both Bishops.

Here's an example:

I prefer to start with f4 and not g3 because f4 gains some control over the center with a pawn, g3 does not. After you open your Bishops you should generally look to strike in the center within the next few moves. So in the above example White should look to play e4 and Black should look to play e5.

You can also use this strategy of opening your center-most Bishop first if the Bishops are shifted over from the corner by one file like in the diagram below:

Here's a vote chess game where my team, The Chess Republic, took advantage of an opponent who didn't play this opening pattern correctly:

Here's another example from one of my own games:

In both of these games my opponents made the mistake of allowing a huge space advantage which severely limited the mobility of their pieces. This could have been prevented if they had better controlled the center with their pawns. If your opponent's pieces are paralyzed on one side of the board due to a lack of space, then a good strategy is to attack on the other side of the board. You will effectively be playing with extra material since your opponent's pieces won't be able to switch sides fast enough to defend against the threats. They simply won't have time or room to maneuver.