Bishop-pair annotation symbol

The bishop pair means that one player has two bishops operating on opposite square colors, normally the two original bishops. One bishop always travels on light squares and the other on dark squares, so together they can influence both color complexes of the board.

The Chess Informant system uses a compact sign for this feature. ⮺ is the specialized character encoded in Unicode, the standard that assigns common codes to digital characters. ◫ is an older rendering that still appears in software and publications.

Some software lists propose Numeric Annotation Glyphs (NAGs) $151 for White's bishop pair and $152 for Black's. Portable Game Notation (PGN), the text format for storing games, allows numbers through $255, but its original specification assigns meanings only through $139. The sign identifies a material and positional feature, but it does not guarantee an advantage. Its value depends on open diagonals, the pawn structure, and piece activity.