“In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else, for whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame.” – José Raúl Capablanca
White’s prospects of winning are the best with a rook’s pawn since then the bishop has the least manoeuvring space. When the pawn is on the seventh, the black bishop does not have the short diagonal at all. White always wins provided he can prevent the enemy king from entering into the drawing zone […]
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In similar positions with a pawn on the seventh rank, the task of the weaker side is much more difficult since the bishop lacks the necessary five squares on the shorter defensive diagonal, so it cannot alone prevent the promotion of the pawn into the queen. If the black king is too far away […]
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In positions with a central pawn on the sixth rank, the winning motif does not consist only in “stalemating” the enemy king, but also in superiority of the centralized knight over the bishop. When the black king is far, the bishop can sometimes be shut out from play by bringing the knight into the […]
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5. MINOR PIECE ENDGAMES In this book, Minor Piece Endgames, we will examine first all the elementary, and then some more complex endgames of knight versus bishop, in which are fully expressed values and tactical features of minor pieces. Bishop is most valuable in simpler positions with less material on board, while in more […]
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