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Two Bishops

Two bishops · MATE IN 3

Two bishops, mate in three - and the obvious move draws

Two bishops mate by giving the king a square, not by taking every square away.

39.5s · 72 words · 6 moves

Stockfish: Bf8 = mate in 3; Kg6 = stalemate (0.00). 25 legal moves: 2 mate in 3, 2 stalemate

1.Bf8 Kh7 2.Bf5+ Kh8 3.Bg7#

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Two bishops and a king can force checkmate. Everybody knows that much. Far fewer people can actually do it at the board, and this position shows exactly where it goes wrong. ♟️

White to move. There are 25 legal moves here. Only two of them lead to mate in three. Two others end the game immediately in stalemate - and one of them is Kg6.

Kg6 is the move most of us would play without thinking twice. Bring the king closer. That is the advice everyone gets, it is right in almost every other endgame, and here it throws away half a point.

The winning move goes the other way: 1.Bf8. The bishop retreats and deliberately gives the black king a square to stand on. Once Black is forced to move, everything works:

1.Bf8 Kh7 2.Bf5+ Kh8 3.Bg7#

Look at Bf5 twice. Played on move one it is stalemate. Played on move two it is check, and then mate follows. Nothing about the square changed - only the moment.

If you take one thing from this: with two bishops you are not trying to take every square away from the enemy king. You are trying to leave him exactly one, and then take that one with check.

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There is a chess position I keep coming back to, because it describes a mistake I have watched teams make for years.

White is completely winning - two bishops against a lone king, mate available in three moves. There are 25 legal moves on the board. Two of them deliver mate. Two of them end the game instantly in stalemate, a draw.

One of those stalemate moves is the most natural move on the board: walk your king closer. It is the standard advice, it works nearly everywhere else, and here it costs half the point.

The move that wins goes backwards. The bishop retreats and deliberately gives the opponent a square to move to. Only then does the mate work.

1.Bf8 Kh7 2.Bf5+ Kh8 3.Bg7#

The same bishop move that was a draw on move one is checkmate on move two. The move never changed. The timing did.

Two things there that travel well outside chess. More pressure is not always progress - sometimes leaving the other side a move is what keeps anything moving at all. And a good idea played at the wrong moment does not read as a good idea. It reads as a mistake.

I build ChessDada, free live multiplayer chess. If you played Yahoo Chess back in the day, it will feel familiar.

https://chessdada.com

#chess #strategy #decisionmaking #leadership