Can black draw?

White is up the exchange, but black is solid on light-squares, plus bishops of opposite-color help black more than white. wB can't challange black's minor pieces in the centre.

What is your verdict of the position?

These are extremely hard-to-break positions, because the dominations do not match. Black is undoubtedly boss of the white squares where he cannot be expelled. The exchange up might be worth nothing for white.

In other words: I do not know. ;-)

At my level, it's still anyone's game. I can imagine winning or losing or drawing with either side.

What happens if you let Stockfish play itself from here?

White should win this.

I'm unqualified to say definitively if it's a draw or white win, but I can tell you that as black I'd try to:

1) Keep my rook on the board - its usefulness getting to any square would be helpful compared to the bishop and knight, which will likely be stationed in the center for quite awhile. Also, with a single open file on the board, white's rooks won't be able to penetrate as two.

2) Defend f7. It's the weakest square after something like h4-h5-h6 and Rh3-f3.

3) Generate annoying counterplay on the queenside. ...Nb4 seems pretty good in the position, attacking g2 and c2 at once.

What do you think @Nordlandia ?

SF says white wins but in reality it will be very hard to convert for white

Top #3 engines wins this as white.

For humans I'll say black has good drawing chances if played carefully.

1) keep the rook on the board

2) sustain light-square blockade - rendering white bishop with no target

3) not weakening pawn structure.

My instinct definitely has this as a white win with perfect play.

Before I did a material count my reaction was that Black is better! Even after... that dark-squared bishop is terrible and I'd be surprised if White could win this.

I don't think a pawn break on the queen side is viable. 2 vs 2. I think the position boils down to what happens to the kingside pawns.



If it were this similar position I think it would totally be a draw... Don't see a way for white to make progress if the pawns lock up on the kingside. If white can avoid this, and gets a nice open file over there things are way different.