The Power of the Bishop Pair

When the position opens up, the bishop can be a dangerous piece, but if there are 2 of them, they are unstoppable. So it's not unusual that one side sacrifices a pawn or even an exchange to grab the bishop pair. I brought you some practical and theoretical examples connected with this theme.

In the first one, former World Champion GM Viswanathan Anand was playing a blindfold game against the strong Dutch Grandmaster Loek van Wely when they had this position:

Amazing play by Vishy! We cannot see these kind of games every day.

In the second, one of the best player of all time GM Bobby Fischer played against his rival GM Bent Larsen where interestingly Bent let Bobby keep the bishop pair...

Great high level chess! Bent regretted not taking that bishop.

The next one is a nice motif which was first introduced by former World Champion Emanuel Lasker and it's called the Double bishop sacrifice. Also interesting to note that this game was played in the 19th century.

Sometimes to use something you have to sacrifice it.

The bishop pair can also be incredibly powerful in the endgames which this study illustrates very well. Try to solve it!

Fantastic composition!

The next is a beautiful study which shows the power of the bishops in a very unusual way which is interesting because there is only one of them on the board in the starting position...

Underpromoting to a bishop is one of the rarest thing in chess.

Now we can see why we shouldn't give away our bishops for no reason and if we have the bishop pair we need to open up the position. Then it can show its real power.

I hope you enjoyed these games and endgames about the Bishop Pair.