Mating with 2 Bishops

A King and Bishop alone cannot mate the lone King, but a King and two Bishops can. Therefor it is very important to assure that the King doesn’t capture one of the Bishops during the mating attempt.
In addition stalemate has to be avoided and we have to accomplish the mate within 50 moves, but after this lesson this should not be a problem.

It is not too difficult to force checkmate with a King and two Bishops against a lone King, but it is certainly more difficult than checkmating with a single Queen or with a single rook.








Black to move Position after move 1 0 half-moves after last pawn advance or capture
The diagram on the left illustrates the most typical mating pattern. Other mating patterns are possible, but in general this is the mating pattern that you should try to accomplish.

White’s light-squared Bishop and the White King are covering all of the squares to which the Black King might retreat and Black has been checkmated by White’s dark-squared Bishop.

















White to move Position after move 0 0 half-moves after last pawn advance or capture
This second diagram illustrates one of the most important ideas of the mating process. The two Bishops have created a prison for the Black King and the King is unable to approach the Bishops. The White King is free to move.

Essentially White wins by forcing the Black King to the side of the board, then to a corner, and then checkmates.
 







The next chess lesson is about the Knight Fork. You will see that the Knight can become more powerful than you may have thought at first sight.

One Response to “Mating with 2 Bishops”

  1. Thanks so much for putting this out here to teach people who want to learn. I am an intermediate player that has just discovered your website a few days ago, but I have learned a lot already. Thanks again you guys are great!

Chess Sites Top 20

Sign in|Report Abuse|Print Page|Remove Access|Powered By Google Sites