Bishop Dominates Knight in the Endgame

I have recently posted a game where the knight dominated the bishop in the endgame.

This was a game I played for a chess9030 tournament on the Internet Chess Club. I didn't feel that I played very well in the opening, but I was able to use my lead in development and intiative in the transition from middlegame to endgame to win a pawn. From there, my bishop dominated his knight.

On a side note, my opponent was very gracious in defeat and we had a nice post-mortem chat after the game. Enjoy!

Lessons from the game:

• It's important to understand the reasoning behind the opening instead of just trying to memorize moves - e.g. 9.c5 instead of 9.f4
• Consider all of your checks, captures, and threats (CCT's) and your opponent's CCT's to your candidate move when calculating- e.g. my not considering 12...Bxc5
• Corollary to the above, when you have an opportunity to win material, you must at least consider it - it is not always the best move, but it is worth at least checking.
• When there are pawns on both sides of the board and the position is fairly open, the bishop is often better than the knight.

I hope you enjoyed this game. I think analyzing your own games - particularly your losses - is the core of all successful chess training. I wrote an article about analyzing your games that you might find useful.

Until next time, I wish you all good chess!