Bottlenose dolphins coordinate to use mudflats and beaches to trap their prey. In this week’s position white similarly traps black’s knight against the edge of the board to win. With this hint in mind please try to find white’s winning line.
White is up a pawn in a bishop versus knight endgame. If the knight can reach a position where it can sacrifice itself for white’s pawn, black will escape with a draw. The knight’s advantage is that it can capture white’s pawn on either a dark or light square.
The bishop’s advantage is that it can cover much more ground than the knight. Here, the bishop now moves to e5. Because the bishop controls the e5-h2 and e5-h8 diagonals, the knight is trapped against the board edge, like a fish trapped against the shore by bottleneck dolphins.
This neutralizes the knight and white’s king easily escorts its pawn to its promotion square on d8 with its bishop providing additional support along the e5-b8 diagonal. Play resumes with black’s king stepping over to e7, as white’s bishop and pawn control the 6th rank. White’s king advances to c5 and black’s king shuffles back to d7.
White next pushes its pawn to e6. Black can retreat its king. But the promotion square is also on a dark square, which white’s bishop can control. This makes retreat hopeless. Alternatively, the black king can move to e6 and attack white’s troublesome bishop (see next diagram).
White, however, ignores the threat and moves its king to c7. From there, the king escorts its pawn to the beach along the eighth rank and promotes and wins.
The lesson this week is that bishops are like dolphins. Dolphins can swim as fast as 37 mph and are one of the fastest creatures in the ocean. Bishops, too, move fast across the board and can cover a lot of ocean quickly.
Reach Eric Morrow at ericmorrowlaw@gmail.com or (505) 327-7121.