Winning the Rook and Bishop vs Rook Ending :-)

Rook and Bishop vs Rook Ending :-)

Trapping the Queen :-)

r1b1k1nr/ppp2ppp/3p4/2qNn3/4PB2/8/PPP2PPP/R2QKB1R
Trapping the Queen; white to move

Trapping the Greedy Queen :-)

r5k1/p1B1bpp1/1p2pn1p/8/2PP4/3B1P2/qP2QP1P/3R1RK1
This position is from a game between two great masters in 1916.(Tarrasch vs. Mieses)

Bishop :-)

The bishop could move only in one direction; it will stay on squares of the same color.

Two Bishop Mate

8/8/1K6/3k1B2/8/8/5B2/8 w - - 0 1
White mate in 15.
1.Bc2 Kc4 2.Be4 Kb4 {Bishop at e4 with bishop at f2 forms an impenetrable diagonal wall which helps forcing the opponent king to the corner of the board!} 3.Be3 Kc4 4.Ka5 Kb3 5.Kb5 Kc3 6.Bf5 Kb3 7.Bd2 Ka3 8.Kc4 Ka4 {Try to use the king instead to influence the white diagonal!} 9.Bc2 Ka3 10.Bc1 Ka2 11.Bd3 Ka1 12.Kc3 Ka2 13.Kc2 Ka1 14.Bb2+ Ka2 15.Bc4#

An Opening Rule :-)

You should not make more than three pawn moves in the first eight moves.

Zugswang Applicable to Benoni's Fighting :-)

"Zugzwang" describes a situation in which a player would rather not make any move at all, the fact that they must leads to disaster. Try to put Black in such a situation! Also, please note that the only "realistic" defensive squares are c7 and c5. Since the King must choose to make a move if there were legal moves possible; otherwise, it is a stalemate, a draw. So the King has to wait a move to defend again; often this would lead to disaster under the concept of Zugzwang.

White to win must carry out each move as "one" action, Kf6 works as distant opposition on the Black's pawn. Afterwards, Black could go to b5, waiting for opportunities to attack at c4, "one" action also.

White then attacks at e7, "one" action. So Black King, being near the center, protects the Black pawn with counter-attack at c5. White King then "drops" a rank protecting the attacked pawn, the intention here is "one" action; Black King makes a move and leaves the Black pawn "isolated", White King would grab it right away :-)

Remember "one" complete action would lead to success in closed-hand combat, especially positions such as from the Benoni.

The Chessboard :-)

Please remember the following about the chessboard:

White on the right.

Kingside Checkmating :-)

The reason I put the King's Bishop on d3 was to decoy the Knight to d4 for a pawn; thus the diagonal b1-h7 was clear. Immediately, this led to a combination shot with both bishops and the White Queen!

Note: The King's bishop did its duty in King's opening such as this one, a Caro-Cann Opening. It made it to f7 and occupied the opponent's "throat"! As there were many short games in the past, especially still in the opening, Qh5's giving check where the h5-e8 diagonal was classic. In this case, the Black King could not go back to his throne at g8. The f6-square was covered by the e5-pawn. Finally, the Queen's Bishop made its day.

Analysis of Damjanovic's blunder :-)

This is a game by grandmaster Damjanovic vs Langeweg at Beverwijk. Here, here, Mr. Damjanovic misplaced his queen from e6 to f7. He had a misconception that Queen's occupying the opponent's "throat" f7 would lead to success. It's not the case here. For any kingside attack as we did our analyses in the previous games, it's paramount to checkmate the opponent as efficient as possible.

The correct analysis is as follow. The White bishop controlled the main diagonal. This meant the g7-pawn was pinned, it was immobilized! So the White queen should move from e6 to h6 where she was safe from attack. Once the Queen reached the h-file safely, she definitely had the edge over her opponent. It's not hard to see what follows in the next move is to push the pawn to g6, then the h7 pawn was pinned too. All we had to do was to capture the h7 pawn with our Queen and checkmated the opponent. Sadly, Damjanovic made a draw for this situation!