Mate With Two Bishops

Mate with 2 Bishops

This lesson is featured inside the “Light patterns” on Chess Trainer, Trainer, an iPhone application “Light pieces mating patterns” helping you to improve your Chess. It teaches the mating technique with a King and 2 Bishops VS King. It can be mastered within 15 minutes o r so. Many other lessons are also available on the Chess Trainer blog, blog, so please have a look and check by yourself ! Feel free to share this lesson with anyone and be sure not to miss any exclusive lesson by subscribing to the Chess Trainer Newsletter ! I picked a random position here:

White to play. The idea is to control 2 adjacent diagonals to cut the e nemy king off. You then use your king to push the enemy King on the edge of the board.

In the above position, white needs to control t he g1-a7 diagonal to build a wall that blocks black’s king. 1.Be3

Played to hinde black from playing Kd4 nad also controls the g1 -a7 diagonal. 1… Kd6

White now needs to bring his king closer to the enemy king. All of white’s pieces are needed to achieve this mate. 2. Kc2 Kc7 3. Be4 Kd7

Best here is to bring the king closer. 4. Kd3 Kd6

What is your move here (solution on next page) ?

Solution: 1. Bf4+ Kc5

The d4, d5 and d6 squares are all controlled, creating a wall that blocks the black king. Now white must bring the enemy king on the edge of the board. 6. Kc3 Kb5

This mating technique is all about square control. Here by playing Be3, white controls c5 and b6 to force the black king to go to the edge of the board. 7. Be3 Ka6

As you can see, black only has 2 available squares: a5 and b5. The bishops are both depriving the king from escaping. With all this in mind, white’s next move is quite obvious. What is this move (solution on next page) ?

The answer is 8. Kc4 !

Every square but one around black’s king are under white’s control. Black’s king is now stuck on the edge of the board. 8… Ka5 9. Bb7

Bb7 deprives black’s king from the a6 square. 9… Ka4

Now what is your move, following the same logic ?

Solution: 10. Bb6

It is now the dark square bishop that deprives black of a square:

10… Ka3

White now needs to control the b2 square. 11. Kc3

Black has only two moves: Ka2 and Ka4. Both lead to mate. 11… Ka4

White’s task is to contrl a4 and a3 to force the black king into the corner with only a1 and a2 as available squares. 12. Bc6+ Ka3 13. Bc5+ Ka2

In this position it is mate in 4. White needs to move his king on b3 and then the bishops will deliver the mate. 14. Kc2 Ka1

Be careful here ! Bd5 would be a draw. White needs to lose a tempo in order to achieve mate. 15. Ba4 Ka2

This position is an easy mate in two (solution on the next page).

Solution: 16. Bb3+

Now the mate is easy: 15… Ka1 16. Bd4#

On move 11, Black could have played Ka2. Let’s see how white should have played in this case. 12. Be3 Ka3 13. Bc6 Ka2

Now White plays Kc2 and delivers mate in few moves. 14. Kc2 Ka3 15. Bc5+ Ka2 16. Bd5+ Ka1 17. Bd4#

As you can see, mating a lone king with 2 bishops is not too difficult. Find how to chec kmate with the knight and the bishop in the “light pieces mating patterns”lesson available on Chess Trainer . Please have a look at the app for more lessons every topic, and don’t forget to suscribe to the Chess Trainer Newsletter to receive more lessons by email !