Bishop versus Knight volume 2

Det evige spørsmålet: Springer eller løper? Svaret er jo at det avhenger av stillingen, og her kommer denne boka - og den forrige i samme lille serie - inn med mange eksempler som hjelp til gode svar i praktisk spill!

Her i bok 2 går forfatteren et nyttig trinn tilbake og viser eksempler der det til å begynne med også er flere offiserer på brettet enn en løper mot en springer.

Forfatterens innledning:

Welcome to my new book. If you are already familiar with the concepts presented in Volume 1 (or, even better, if you have already read Volume 1) I am sure you will seriously upgrade your knowledge with Volume 2. You will find often here the same principles in action, but there will be a lot of new principles as well!

The material is divided into four chapters, and two parts, depending if we have an endgame with queens or rooks on the board. I have decided to keep the focus on endgames ­because in middlegames, some other factors may simply prevail. In endgames, the importance of having a knight against a bishop just increases! For easier understanding, I suggest that before studying any example, you should determine which side will prevail and you can find the solutions yourself. Of course, you can work directly from the book and even skip some examples, and you can analyze them in random order.

In the book, you will find Capablanca’s famous postulate about the queen and knight cooperating better than the queen and bishop, and some exceptions as well. For first time, you will hear of my audacious “postulate” that a rook and knight will “more often” prevail over a rook and bishop combination. I know this may sound absurd. I know Tal and Fischer would have disagreed and probably would have been indignant to hear this. I know many strong players would rather have a rook and bishop combination, basing their approach on the past masterpieces of these giants. But what about Rubinstein, and especially Karpov and Andersson – these masters had a great influence on my style and my coaching methods. Furthermore, I have based my “postulate” on statistics that I obtained after deeply searching for examples for this book. I hope it will reopen a debate about this material balance. My opinion is made, and I would like to apologize to all “bishop fans”.

I have decided to use actual words instead of symbols to explain my ideas, methods and plans. I think that it should be right in this computer era that is full of numbers, digits, etc. that words and sentences from the coach are simply irreplaceable to explain strategy and endgames.

I am sure that this book will demystify that “eternal battle” and help you to broaden your horizons. I am sure you will find a lot for yourself in this book.

I wish you pleasure in your work and many wins in future with implementing the principles from this book.

~ Boroljub Zlatanovic

Fra forordet:

In his new endgame series, Boroljub Zlatanovic shows a profound understanding of the most common material imbalance in chess: that of the bishop against the knight. The didactic concept of the book is admirable as well as the detailed explanations of the typical characteristics of this endgame. Despite the importance of this subject, it has received very little detailed coverage in chess literature and this encyclopedic work will definitely fill this gap and offer a lot of useful tips for practical play.

~ Alexander Delchev

Innholdet:

009 Foreword

010 Preface

013 PART I - Endgames with Rooks on the Board

015 Chapter 1 - When the Bishop is Superior

101 Chapter 2 - When the Knight is Superior

197 PART II - Endgames with Queens on the Board

199 Chapter 1 - When the Bishop is Superior

235 Chapter 2 - When the Knight is Superior

273 Index of Games