Hi all,

 

Recently, I was in a position where I had a chance to take the corner pawn in a castled position with my bishop, I had a knight defending this square too so the king couldnt recapture, and hence my opponent would have to recapture with his rook, which I could then recapture, and obviously lose the knight by the king, now I understand in the scoring system this is equal (i.e. pawn = 1 rook = 5 and the bishop and knight both = 3) but am i right in saying i am gimping myself with this move?  I didnt make the move in the game and just wanted other opinions on it.

 

Thanks,

 

Jamie. 

generally a bishop and a knight are considered to be better because of the increased mobility, however every situation should be assessed before making that decision

I would take it if you could exploit his king having to recapture the knight

This is one of the best ways in which to see that the "points system" is not all it's cracked up to be. I would only trade B+N for R+P in very specific circumstances; in general, you do not want to surrender two of your pieces to eliminate one of your opponent's.

depends on the point at which you are in the game. Unless you are goin for a stale mate keep your knights and bishops until the end game. At that point the rooks become more valuable.

well, you should also consider all the effort you've put into getting your minor pieces to where they are.  Your opponent has likely not moved his rook all game except while castling.  So really you are trading bishop, knight, and 3 maybe 4 tempi, for a rook, a pawn, and 1 tempo assuming your opponent decides to retreat his king.  Also, 2 pieces will usually outplay a rook since they can work together, and a pawn is rarely enough to make up the difference. 

The only answer is that it depends upon the position.  If it is a pawn in front of the King, this trade may well be worth it. Try to post the position, or one similar, and we can give you our opinions.

I am trying to post the game with a FEN string, but i am struggling, probably coz it is late and i need sleep!  Shall sort it out tomorrow!  Thanks for all the replies!

It depends how you value bishops. Since a pair of bishops is considered stronger than a pair of knights or a knight and a bishop, some players give bishops a higher value than knights. I know some players who won't even consider trading a bishop for a knight except in extraordinary circumstances. If you value bishops at 3.5 and knights at 3, then it isn't a good trade. If you are trying to break through a castled kings defenses so you can attack with another piece or pieces, it might be a good trade. It is situational. 

Hopefully this board comes out right, as it wasn't orking last night....... 

 

In this position I think it is too early to consider trading two minor pieces for rook and pawn. The rooks generally don't activate until late in the game, so losing one now probably won't slow white down much. The hole in the pawn chain also probably won't be exploitable until later in the game. At this stage the knight and bishop would be more valuable to me. 

Sweet, you'll be glad to hear in the game I played the passive NC3!

The problem, though, is that you shouldn't have advanced the knight into that position in the first place. You wasted a move getting it there and another move getting it back. You gave white a gift of time which you never want to do as black because white already starts out with a slight time advantage.