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The time Fischer allowed opposite color bishops

ChessEndgameStrategyAnalysis
Opposite Color Bishops

The time Fischer allowed opposite color bishops

By NM Donny Gray

One of the endings you want to try to avoid if you are up in material is opposite color bishop endings. They are famous for being drawish if they and pawns are the only pieces left on the board.

With additional pieces, the stronger side has more chances to win, just not as many as when bishops are the same color. Even if your name is Bobby Fischer, you just can not win, if you allow it in many cases!

If you are losing, sometimes going into an opposite color bishop ending can let you escape with a draw. Not 100% sure draw, but at least you have a chance.

In these endings, a material advantage is less important than in most end games and position is more important. In almost half of the endings with a bishop and two pawns versus a bishop on the opposite color end in draws. If the bishops are the same color, then the side with the extra pawns win 90% of the time. A big difference!

Take the following example. White is up two pawns. But opposite colored bishops means white must be careful.

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White wins this easy, but it can get out of control very easy.

If....

1.f7+?? Kf8
2.Bb5 Be7

And draw.

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Black will move the bishop back and forth forever on the f8-a3 diagonal. Even though white is 2 pawns up he will never be able to push his pawns again without them being taken by the black bishop.

So, what is the correct way to win this?

1.Bb5+ Kf8
2.Kf5 and black has no moves that does not allow white to play e7 winning.

This is a text book example of why opposite colored bishop endings leads to a high percentage of draws.

Now in middle games having opposite colored bishops can be an advantage to who ever is attacking. Hard to stop an attacking black squared bishop if you don’t have one to counter it.

Grand Master Edmar Mednis gave two principles for endgames with bishops on opposite colors:

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  1. If a player is down material he should look for drawing chances in an endgame with only the bishops and pawns.
  2. With major pieces (queen or rook) on the board, having bishops on opposite colors favors the side with an attack.

Grand Master Ian Rogers gave three principles when there are only the bishops and pawns:

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  1. Two connected pawns are not sufficient to win unless they reach their sixth rank

  2. If the attacker has two widely separated passed pawns that cannot be controlled by the opposing bishop on a single diagonal, they usually win.

  3. When the attacker has an outside passed pawn, it should be stopped by the bishop only when the king can block the opposing king.

In closing let’s take a look at a very famous game that had this theme.

This game was played back in 1966 at the Piatigorsky Cup Tournament between GM Bobby Fischer and GM Jan Donner. The story goes that Fischer played fast on his 30th move and was about to play Bd3 when he saw it was a blunder. Since no other bishop move was any better he had to play Bd3 anyway due to the touch move rule.

The move Bd3 allowed Donner to trade it into an drawn opposite color bishop ending. Had Fischer won the game, he would have tied with Boris Spassky for 1st place.

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GM Bobby Fischer

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GM Jan Donner

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The position after 30.Bd3

Full Game

Piatigorsky-Cup 2nd
White: GM Fischer, Robert James
Black: GM Donner, Jan Hein
Site: Santa Monica
Round: 4

  1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. c3 d5 9. exd5 Nxd5 10. Nxe5 Nxe5 11. Rxe5 c6 12. d4 Bd6 13. Re1 Qh4 14. g3 Qh3 15. Be3 Bg4 16. Qd3 Nxe3 17. Rxe3 c5 18. Qf1 Qh6 19. Nd2 Rad8 20. Nf3 Bxf3 21. Rxf3 cxd4 22. cxd4 Qd2 23. Rd3 Qg5 24. Rc1 Rc8 25. Rdc3 Rxc3 26. bxc3 Ba3 27. Rc2 Rc8 28. c4 bxc4 29. Bxc4 Qf5 30. Bd3 Rxc2 31. Bxf5 Rc1 32. Qxc1 Bxc1 33. Kf1 h6 34. Ke2 Kf8 1/2-1/2

NM Donny Gray

The best place to practice your endings: ChessThinker.com

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