The power of the bishops

by Karsten Müller
10/9/2017 – If they come in pairs bishops can be very strong. But sometimes even a single bishop is strong enough to control the whole board. This edition of Karsten Müller's endgame column looks at what happens when the bishops face off against a rook.

Chess Endgames 11 - Rook against Bishop Chess Endgames 11 - Rook against Bishop

The more reduced the material, the more important it is to correctly assess the potential of your own and the enemy pieces. This is particularly true in endgames with unbalanced material. This DVD begins with a discussion of asymmetrical material balances, including
rook against bishop, rook and knight against two bishops, two rooks against rook and bishop, queen and rook against queen and bishop, rook and knight against bishop and knight, rook against two bishops.
Video running time: 8 hours 26 min.

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Two heads are better than one

The bishop pair is a powerful weapon since two bishops working together can control many squares — both light and dark — from the distance, which useful in both attack and defense.

 
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94.Rh6 Usually two bishops are stronger than a rook. But if passed pawns are on the board it is crucial to calculate precisely:
Black to move and win.
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Ernst,S2535Van Wely,L2675½–½2017D85ch-NED 20177.2

ChessBase Magazine 180

Enjoy the best moments of recent top tournaments (Sinquefield Cup, FIDE Grand Prix Geneva, Biel) with analysis of top players. In addition you'll get lots of training material. For example 12 new suggestions for your opening repertoire.

Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine

Do you like these lessons? There are plenty more by internationally renowned endgame expert Dr Karsten Müller in ChessBase Magazine, where you will also find openings articles and surveys, tactics, and of course annotations by the world's top grandmasters.

Apart from his regular columns and video lectures in ChessBase Magazine there is a whole series of training DVDs by Karsten Müller, which are bestsellers in the ChessBase Shop.

Karsten Mueller

Karsten Müller regularly presents endgame lessons in the ChessBase Video Portal

ChessBase Magazine #180 (October/November)

The editor’s top ten: 

  1. Hou Yifan’s temptation: the ex-women’s world champion shows how, cool as ice, she countered Bacrot in the traditional tournament in Biel.
  2. Perfect start: Teimour Radjabov annotates his win with Black against the almost unbeatable Anish Giri at the Grand Prix in Geneva.
  3. "Simple is good!" Together with GM Simon Williams find the simple but strong winning moves in the game Radjabov-Eljanov. (Video)
  4. Are you as fast as Vishy Anand? With Oliver Reeh solve one of the deepest winning combinations in this issue. (Video)
  5. No simple play in the “Double English“: let GM Mihail Marin bring you up to date on the opening after 1.c4 c5.
  6. Vishy Anand and the Steckner proof: Karsten Müller presents high class technique in a classical rook ending. (Video)
  7. Brakes applied to the Accelerated Dragon: let Renato Quintiliano show you a tricky positional plan for White.
  8. Unprejudiced world champion: Peter Heine Nielsen annotates Carlsen’s successful premiere with the Bird Opening (1.f4) on the Grand Chess Tour.
  9. With the Catalan bishop against the Rubinstein French: Jonas Lampert shows you why you may hope for an advantage with 5.g3! (Video)
  10. "King in the box": enjoy the unforgettable mating patterns in Efstratrios Grivas’ FIDE training course.

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Karsten Müller is considered to be one of the greatest endgame experts in the world. His books on the endgame - among them "Fundamentals of Chess Endings", co-authored with Frank Lamprecht, that helped to improve Magnus Carlsen's endgame knowledge - and his endgame columns for the ChessCafe website and the ChessBase Magazine helped to establish and to confirm this reputation. Karsten's Fritztrainer DVDs on the endgame are bestsellers. The mathematician with a PhD lives in Hamburg, and for more than 25 years he has been scoring points for the Hamburger Schachklub (HSK) in the Bundesliga.

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