best square for bishop

Can someone explain me what and why is the best square for the bishop? Even with engine analysis I don't get the rationale behind it. A4, C4 seem like reasonable squares for me because A4 keeps pressure on the knight or the queen side in general, C4 because it puts the bishop on a very active diagonal however unprotected. My engine however storngly considers E2 and even F1 which seem very defensive and immobile to me. What's the purpose behind putting the bishop on one of those squares?

e2 and f1 are considered as good move but the best move is Bc4 then Bd3

play this position against the computer and make sure coaching mode is on

For me it says e2 > f1 > a4 @depth 26. And even if the order is different at some point, all squares seem reasonably close. To me however it seems as if e2 and especially f1 have to be considerably worse than the other alternatives, simply because I don't see why the bishop should protect the knight on f3 or the pawn on g2 or why he would ever wanna move to the king side where black has a phalanx of pawns. So how come, these squares are actually quite reasonable?

They will all give white a clear advantage - must admit my first instinct was Be2, the move I like least is probably Ba4. Black’s only real idea is ...b5 (ok or maybe ...f5 which won’t work out for Black) and with the B on an ‘out of the way’ square you could react to that immediately with a4, or just continue Nd2-b3 etc without wasting another move. The difference between all the moves is probably marginal though.

Well, both a4 and c4 are ugly retreats for the B; both e2 and –particularly– f1 seem accurate, although you should consider that both follow different plans.

Alas, there are no immediate tactical considerations at this point, hence the piece disposition is about coordinating them for future tactics, while preventing the rival from obtaining activity with time. That explains why c4 and a4 seem bad, as eventually Black may get b7–b5 with tempo. Also, there's no real "active a2–g8 diagonal" in this position, because there's no clear way to coordinate the B with any other piece, at this point, as to create threats along the aforementioned diagonal.

As of e2 and f1... the position asks from White to paralyze Black on the dark squares and not allowing Black to get squares as to free his pieces (getting good coordination both for defense and attack). But at some point White should start developing threats, whether against Black's Q side, the backward d–pawn, or the weakened K–side. Positioning the B on e2 gets the chance to develop it to g4 at some point, but also makes it prone to be attacked with time should Black manage to push his f–up up to f3. On f1 such attack wont happen with time, and has the benefit of allowing White to push ahead both his f and g–pawns without severely compromising his own K position, as the B could be posted on g2, where also increases his control on the d5–square.

Think of it as choosing an active diagonal. Is a2-g8 active? Is f1-a6 active?

And then remember what it means to be active... you have to be attacking a weakness (usually a pawn or the enemy king), or promoting infiltration.

So sure, Bc4 might look attractive at first glance, but are you attacking a pawn? Nope. The king? Not by itself. Are you infiltrating? No. So Bc4 hits a lot of air, and is probably misplaced. The most plausible argument for Bc4 IMO is you'd move it to d5 where it might do some work on the queenside (but at the cost of blocking your d file).

The most natural move to me is Bf1. First of all a nice feature of Bf1 is it doesn't obstruct any friendly pieces (which is why it seems better than Be2 to me). But also it's on an active diagonal. It's looking at black pawns. Together with a4 and maybe a future a5 + b5 (in the far future) it supports active play.

Thanks, great explanations.

I probably misused some words. By 'active' I just meant, the a2-g8 diagonal looks very important/promising to me because I can look all the way into black's king side and felt like any reasonable attack I might have coming will somehow be related to this diagonal. Yes, it doesn't threaten anything immediately but it just seems advantageous looking down that long of an open diagonal and attacking as many squares as possible. The same way one should look to take open files with rooks. Yes, I too saw b5 but for one, I would just have moved to d5 and I further couldn't see how to prevent it with any other move.

While I can get on board with some of the explanations about e2 or f1 it probably would have never occured to me ingame. To me this just seems like the first step of retreat from the queen side giving black some breathing room. I can see some advantage about the bishop not blocking any of my own pawns on the queen side or why a4 is not a great move but all other ideas are very tough to see and rank appropriately right now.

I think another note to add is on the note of King safety. Take a look at the beauty that is Bf1, The bishop is tucked away in a hard to assail position and protects the g pawn. meaning that you can prevent damaging your kingside wall and opening up to a future white square weakness. In addition to the fact that it obviously stops back rank mates. As a dodo 1100 rated player I just keep being reminded of king safety 24/7

You thought for 6 years, and you came up with this?

King safety is not really an issue for white, as no black pieces are attacking.

Funny enough I came across the post and didn't look at the timestamps. I am well aware that King safety is not currently issue but it can become one later, it was more of a thought about in addition to keeping the bishop out of the way it also protects the king. one of the really interesting things to me is in the Ruy Lopez how some of the lines that the Stockfish recommend often put the bishop back on F1 after castling. My favorite line of course is if you follow the berlin from this point

the two top engine moves are Nxe5 and Be7 and with a depth of 50 plus and several hundred million nodes stockfish 15.1 says that F1 is the best response in both cases. Presumably because that knight is yours whenever you want to take it.

Another thought of mine is that the bishop being on F1 also promotes an attack later with the queenside majority, but being that I am not a super great player (working on it) I didn't want to go down a conclusion that I hadn't worked out all the way yet and probably am missing a lot of nuance.

f1 seems most natural to me. The point is twofold.

1) Queenside pressure. Your plan is to attack the queenside with Nb1-d2-c4-b6 and a2-a4 to dominate that side of the board. We want him to play b7-b5 so that we can create more weaknesses with a2-a4.

Our bishop will block the a pawn on a4 and block the knight from c4. The seemingly active prospects on the kingside are only an illution there's nothing there.

Here's an example:

This. I would play Be2. Why help Black develop by playing Ba4 or Bc4?

White's Queen cannot be maintained on d6, and once it is driven off there won't really be much point in controlling the b3-g8 diagonal anyway. e2 is a good, flexible square for the Bishop.

Please leave you pathetic person. You think using chat gpt to get attention will get you anywhere in life?

Maybe he isn't using ChatGPT. Maybe he is ChatGPT.

Fair point. That would explain his behaviour

according to gpt detectors there’s less than 1% chance you wrote it yourself you liar

Less than 0.1% even lol

It was obvious just by reading the first few sentences that the above paragraph was not written by a Human.

Also it had nothing to do with the context of the question. Establishing context is still one of the main weaknesses of computer-generated text.