Embracing Boredom
Martin B. Justesen
Does a 2700+ GM know how to checkmate with a bishop and knight?
I’m now 11 days into this detox experiment. I’m still fighting a little with embracing periods with boredom. After doing poorly on a Knight+Bishop+King vs. King chapter in Yusupov I started to fill periods with boredom with playing the endgame. After doing it many times now I realized there were some key ideas I never really had understood before. Even GM’s sometimes struggle with this endgame, just look at the above picture, where you see GM Rauf Mamedov (2654) sweating over this endgame against Gawain Jones in the fourth round of the Batumi olympiad. Position no. 1First idea: get the Knight to f7 to take away the corner and to start walking the King over to the opposite corner with the w-maneuver (Nf7-Ne5-Nd7-Nc5-Nb7). Sometimes I managed to get the Knight to g7 or e7 and then it just went wrong.
Position no. 2I often failed in the below position because of the fear of the King would escape, but when I learned that the Bishop can go to d3 and after Kc7-Be4. Now the King is brought back towards the corner.
Position no. 3Now the King is closing in on the right corner. I however had problems figuring out how to force the King away from the d8-square until I figured out that you could create a mate on d8 after Bc4 - Kd8 - Bb5 - Kc8 - Bd7+ - Kd8 - Nb7#.
I found an interesting quote from John Cage that captures the essence of this endgame. John Cage, famously composed 4’33. A piece of music with 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. The quote goes:
“If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.”John Cage
This is my experience with the Knight and Bishop endgame.
*Please share this post if you like it*
Best,Martin
In order to unsubscribe, click here.
If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.
Created with Revue by Twitter.