Chess lessons › Chess endgames
Bishops of opposite colours
Why one extra pawn, often two, is not enough to win against the other bishop.
The idea
One extra pawn, even two, is usually a draw unless they are far apart.
- Black’s king is too far away to stop the pawn on d6.
- The bishop can only stop it on a light square: d7.
- Be6 covers d7 in time, and the position is a draw.
In a game: With bishops of opposite colours, count the pawns and see how far apart they stand.
How the lesson begins
With bishops of opposite colours, one extra pawn is usually a draw. Black’s king stands in front of the pawn on d8, and Black’s bishop on h3 also watches d7, the next square on the pawn’s path. White’s bishop runs on dark squares and Black’s on light squares, so they can never attack each other.
White has no way past the blockade: a draw.
Find the move
Black’s king is too far away to stop the pawn, so the bishop must do it. The pawn has two squares left: d7, a light square, and d8, a dark one. Find the bishop move that holds the draw.
A hint
Your bishop can only stop the pawn on a light square.
Show the answer
1... Be6
Be6 covers d7. If the pawn steps there, the bishop takes it, even if it is then lost: a king and bishop alone cannot mate. A bishop can only stop a pawn on squares of its own colour, so it had to reach d7 now. Every other move lets the pawn through.
In numbers
In the puzzle bank
861 puzzles in GreyChess’s bank practise it. Half of them are rated between 1,020 and 2,304.
The piece that makes the first move of the answer: pawn 53%, bishop 28%, king 19%, in puzzles from the Lichess puzzle database.