Yelena Dembo’s Blog

WE LEARN FROM ANATOLY KARPOV

The 12th World champion Anatoly Karpov has no as well-known students as Kasparov was in Botvinnik’s chess-school and Yussupov in chess-school of Dvoretsky. First of all he is a chess-player. Preferring to create works of art but not “to make Grandmasters” he is a great practical worker in chess. Why? Each person has his own mission!
But any genuine work of art (it makes no difference if it is music of Mozart, pictures of impressionists or games of best chess-players) can be considered in two aspects:
1) you can admire and enjoy it,
2) you can learn to use it.
Today we’ll see one of the most interesting moments of Karpov’s games – his interpretation of the theme “Opposite color Bishops with Rooks”. I don’t want to press on anybody but I am sure that Karpov is one of the best specialists in this subject. And therefore just now we all are students of Karpov in this matter.

Conclusions

So how to win positions with opposite color Bishops and Rooks?
Necessary condition: our last minor piece (Bishop) has to be better than its opponent. But what does it mean: a better Bishop?
It is a Bishop, which:
a) attacks a King of a rival better than its opposite color colleague one and creates threats of mate without counteract of a rival’s Bishop (!); as a particular case it is possible to notice an active participation of King and pawns in making checkmate positions;
b) attacks weaknesses;
c) captures important squares.
By the way, very often a pair of Bishops leads to good for one side opposite color Bishops. Let’s remember one of the well-known phrases of not less well-known Grandmaster E. Gufeld:”What is there a pair of Bishops for? To exchange one of them in right moment with advantage!”
As a summary of above-stated it is possible to say that good for you opposite color Bishop is a result of an art of piece exchange; it is a very interesting and global theme. And it would be good to return to it later!