Endgame riddle: The eternal duel - bishop vs knight

by Karsten Müller
4/15/2021 – The International Master Ole Jakobsen (19 October 1942 - 30 June 2010) from Denmark is not particularly well-known but from 1960 to 1980 he was one of the best players of his country and in 1969, 1971 and 1980 he won the Danish Championship. In 1973 he finished fourth in the IBM-B Tournament in Amsterdam, where he defeated Eugenio Torre, who was soon to become one of the world's best players, in an interesting endgame bishop versus knight. Karsten Müller has taken a closer look at this endgame and invites you to help analysing it.
Rules of thumb are the key to everything when you are having to set the correct course in a complex endgame. In this final DVD of his series on the endgame, our endgame specialist introduces you to the most important of these rules of thumb.

The eternal duel: bishop vs knight

Endgames in which the bishop fights against the knight – and vice versa – are often full of surprising subtleties. Often they are also complicated and not easy to understand. The following endgame, in which Black performs long manoeuvres with king and knight to win in the end, is a typical example. Was this win indeed forced or could White have saved himself, perhaps with the help of the 50-move rule?

The reader is invited to search for the truth about this endgame – could White have saved himself, and if so, when and how?

 
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The following minor piece endgame is extremely deep as the manovers of Black's knight and king seems to last forever. Charles Sullivan has found out that even the 50 move rule plays a significant role in the evaluations. So prepare to dig deep and find the mistakes in the following taking the 50 move rule into account! 66.Nc4+ Nxc4 67.Bxc4 Kd7 68.Kd3 Kc8 69.Kc3 Kb7 70.Kb3 Kb6 71.Kc3 Ne8 72.Be2 Nf6 73.Bd3 Nh7 74.Bf1 Ng5 75.Kc4 Ne6 76.Kc3 Nd4 77.Kd2 c5 78.bxc5+ Kxc5 79.Kc3 Kb6 80.Kd2 Ka5 81.Kc3 Kb6 82.Kd2 Kc6 83.Be2 Kc5 84.Bd1 Kc4 85.Be2+ Kb3 86.Bd1+ Kb2 87.Ke1 Kc3 88.Ba4 Kd3 89.Bd1 Ke3 90.Kf1 Kd2 91.Ba4 Ne2 92.Bd1 Nc3 93.Be2 Nb1 94.Bc4 Na3 95.Bb3 Kc3 96.Ba4 Nc4 97.Bb5 Ne3+ 98.Kg1 Kd2 99.Ba6 Ke1 100.Bd3 Nd1 101.Ba6 Nc3 102.Bd3 Na4 103.Bb5 Nc5 104.Bc4 Nb7 105.Bb5 Na5 106.Ba4 Nc4 107.Bb5 Nd2 108.Ba4 Ke2 109.Bb5+ Ke3 110.Ba4 Nxf3+ 111.gxf3 Kxf3 112.Bc6 g2 0–1
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Torre,E2506Jakobsen,O23320–11973B08Amsterdam IBM-B5

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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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