Classic Demonstration of the Power of the Bishop Pair by Wilhelm Steinitz
Do you love the bishop pair? Check out this amazing example of its power!
The power of bishop pair
We have all heard about the power of the bishop pair. In open positions, the bishop pair is much more valuable than the knight pair or the bishop and knight pair. It seems clear.
But sometimes we all have problems using the bishop's advantage.
Let's look at the classic game where we can see how precisely Wilhelm Steinitz (the first World Champion) demonstrated the power of the bishop's pair. Steinitz slowly limited white's pieces (especially the knight) and turned the position into a win for black's pieces.
You will see how simple chess can be.
The excerpt is from English - Steinitz, played in London in 1883. We start in this position, with black on the move.
1... Rfe8 (the idea is 2.... Rxe3 3.fxe3 Rxd2) 2. Nb3 (probably better was 2.Nf3 as the knight on the queen’s side has no room) b6 3. h3 Be6 4. Rfd1 c5 (restricting the space for white pieces)
5. Bg5 f6 6. Bf4 Kf7 7. f3 g5 8. Rxd8 Rxd8 9. Be3 h6 (with the idea to play 10… f5 and open the diagonal for the dark-squared bishop)
10. Re1 f5 11. f4 Bf6 12. g3 a5 (again taking the place of White’s knight) 13. Nc1 a4 14.a3 Bc4 (and now there is no place for the wretched knight)
15. Kf2 gxf4 16. Bxf4 Bg5 17. Bxg5 hxg5 18. Ke3 Kf6 19. h4 gxh4 20. gxh4 Re8 21. Kf2 Rxe1 22. Kxe1 Ke5 (the pawn ending is won for black)
23. Ne2 Bxe2 24. Kxe2 Kf4 25. c4 Kg4 26. Ke3 f4 27. Ke4 f3 28. Ke3 Kg3 0-1
Beautiful game, right?
My week in chess
More like the last month. About the same amount of time has passed since my post here, where I mentioned my playing and training.
I play a weekly tournament (one game a week) and so far my record is +1, =3, -1.
I suffered that loss yesterday, and it was a case of messing up the very first moves and wanting to cry at the start of the game. I managed to spin Black into that position after 5.Bg5.
And it was hell to manage defending the weakness on f6 + the subsequent difficulty to make a castle. In the end, it didn't work.
But at least now I know that after 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.e4 I don't have to worry about playing 3.... d5 (instead of 3.... d6 which I played yesterday), because the theory continues with 4.e5 d4 5.exf6 dxc3 6.fxg7 cxd2+ and 7.... Bxg7
I'd like to play one rapid tournament in the summer, so I'm slowly starting to practice a faster pace than classic chess.
But otherwise I have to say that the last weeks I'm pretty exhausted from work (where I work with my head) and so it's quite hard to find the strength and energy to continue working with my head over chess. But I have a few days of rest coming up, so hopefully I'll get some much needed energy.
Weekly tactics
Black to move.
Is there any way for him to save the game?
That’s all for this week. Have a great weekend and enjoy your chess games!
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