Each of us have heard about the power of bishop pair. In the open positions the bishop pair is much more valuable that pair of knights or bishop and knight. It seems to be clear.

But sometimes all of us may have problems to apply the bishop pair advantage.

Let’s look at the classic game where we can watch how precisely Wilhelm Steinitz (the first World Champion) demonstrated the power of bishop pair. Steinitz slowly limited white’s pieces (especially the knight) and turned the position into won for black pieces.

Is not it easy? ;) When you know how to play, of course ;)

I just read the book Kasparov on Modern Chess, Part 2 (subtitle Kasparov vs Karpov 1975-1985). And it is really interesding piece. It reffers to his first two matches with Karpov and also the games they had played before those matches. The games are deeply commented and although many games is out my opening repertoaire it is very useful to play them with the book in hand. One can learn a lot about thinking of top grandmasters and about psychology of chess matches.

One of things that really took my attention is a note about dividing chessboard in two halves – right one and left one.

When Kasparov explains this technique, he speaks about counting how many opponent’s pieces are on eah half. It is also very important to consider where the opponent’s king is placed. When the result of this investigation is clear – too many opponent’s pieces are on the second half of the chessboard and his king is not guarded then you HAVE to look for ways how to attack the king.

Sounds simple, right?

Of course, you need to take into consideration the actual problems on the board and not to attack without thinking about safety of your own king.

What do you think about this way of evaluation of the position? What is your favorite technique? Please, share it in comments section below.