The game between Konstantin Aseev (2520) and Vladimir Bagirov (2475) played in Leningrad 1989 is one of the games that perfectly illustrates some of the main concepts of the endgame with bishops of opposite colour.
|  | |
Bishops_Endgame |
( Instead of this variation most of the time something like 3... a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 is played. )
4.Nxd4 exd4 5.Bc4 ( 5.O-O is played more frequently, but White has a lot of good alternatives like c3, d3 or Bc4. )
5… Nf6 6.O-O Nxe4 7.Bxf7+ Kxf7 8.Qh5+ g6 9.Qd5+ Kg7 10.Qxe4 Qf6 11.d3 Bc5 12.Nd2 Rf8 13.Nf3 h6 14.b3 Bb6 15.Bb2
These are probably the most logical moves but I don’t like to play this position with the black pieces. Black normally continues with c5 because the pawn has to be defended.
( 17.Nxd4! looks very promising, but let’s stop annotating the whole game and continue with the interesting position that arises after the 70th move. On the other hand I won’t stop you if you want to analyze the whole game. )
17… Rb8 18.Nd2 Bf5 19.Qf3 Rf7 20.Re2 Ba5 21.Qd5 Bxd2 22.Bxd2 and now both players have a bishop of the opposite colour on the board 22...c6 23.Qf3 Rbf8 24.Qg3 Qg6 25.Rfe1 c5 26.h3 b5 27.Re7 Kh7 28.Ba5 c4 29.Bb4 cxd3 30.cxd3 Rxe7 31.Rxe7+ Rf7 32.Rxf7+ Qxf7 33.Qxd6 Bxd3 34.Qxd4 Bb1 35.Qc5 Qd7 36.Qc1 Be4 37.Qe3 Bb1 38.Bc3 Qd1+ 39.Kh2 Qd6+ 40.Be5 Qd7 41.Qc1 Be4 42.Qc5 a5 43.a4 bxa4 44.bxa4 Kg8 45.Qxa5 Bc6 46.Qa6 Qd5 47.Qc8+ Kf7 48.Qf5+ Ke8 49.f3 Bxa4 50.Qg6+ Kd7 51.Qg7+ Kd8 52.Bg3 Qe6 53.h4 g4 54.fxg4 Bc6 55.Qh8+ Kd7 56.Qh7+ Ke8 57.Qh8+ Kf7 58.Qd4 Qe4 59.Qf2+ Kg8 60.Bf4 Kh7 61.Kg3 Bd7 62.h5 Bc6 63.Be3 Bd5 64.Bf4 Qd3+ 65.Kh4 Qe4 66.Bd2 Be6 67.Qf3 Qxf3 68.gxf3
71.Bxh6+! The sacrifice of the bishop was needed to open the position. 71... Kxh6 72.f6 Bd3 73.g5+ Kh7 74.f7 Kg7 75.g6 1-0
More chess lessons? An index of all chess lessons can be found here.
Leave a Reply