Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master by Jeremy Silman

Author:Jeremy Silman [Silman, Jeremy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Chess
Publisher: Siles Press
Published: 2006-10-31T05:00:00+00:00

3.Bc5!

Getting ready to swing back to c7.

3…Be5

Black will rush his King back to c6, but he can’t do it yet since 3…Kb5 is met by 4.Ba7.

4.Be7 Kb5

Else White wins by Bd8 followed by Bc7.

5.Bd8 Kc6

It seems like Black has stopped White again, but now a nice maneuver shows that the game is, in fact, over.

6.Bf6! Bf4 7.Bd4 when Black can no longer keep white’s Bishop off of a7. The rest: 7…Bg3 8.Ba7 Bf4 9.Bb8 Be3 10.Bg3 Ba7 11.Bf2, 1-0.

This leaves us with one question: from our last diagram, why was 3.Bc5 the only way to win? Wouldn’t 3.Be3 be just as effective? It’s important that you understand the answer to this question: 3.Be3 Bd6 4.Bg5 Kb5 5.Bd8 Kc6 6.Be7 Bh2 and 7.Bc5 isn’t possible due to 7…Kxc5. Therefore, 3.Bc5! was very important since it stopped Black from moving his Bishop to d6, which in turn allows White to successfully swing his Bishop with tempo to the g1-a7 diagonal and avoid contact with black’s King.

Let’s repeat this in a slight different way: 3.Bc5! prevents …Bd6 and forces the black Bishop to move to g3, f4, or e5. When White ultimately challenges that Bishop via Bh4, Bg5, or Bf6, white’s Bishop will then be out of reach of the enemy King (now on c6) when it moves to f2, e3, or d4.

Centurini, in the middle of the nineteenth century, postulated that a zugzwang isn’t possible if two free squares along the crucial diagonal remain open to the defending Bishop. If the defending Bishop has less than two, then the stronger side will usually win (there are a couple of exceptions, but since we’re after concept and not brute memorization, we’ll let these pass by—if you wish to make an in-depth study of this kind of Bishop endgame, you can find the exceptions in any detailed endgame tome).

Centurini’s Rule

A zugzwang isn’t possible if two free squares along the crucial diagonal remain open to the defending Bishop. If the defending Bishop has less than two, then the stronger side will usually win.

The following example illustrates this rule rather nicely, while also showing the student how these ideas can often allow you to successfully advance a pawn that’s as far back as the 5th rank.

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