Knight v Bishop (part 59)

SO far I have covered those bishop-v-knight endings from my praxis that began with an equal number of seven, six or five pawns aside, but did not end in draws (there were none starting with eight pawns aside).

The player with the knight won the seven-pawn endings by the narrow margin of 9-8, the six-pawn endings by the wide margin of 21-7 and the five-pawn endings by the narrow margin of 7-6.

Taking all three sets of endings, the knight leads the bishop by 37-21.

I now move to bishop-v-knight endings from my praxis that had four pawns aside but did not end in draws.

White has just captured on g5 in L Aris (147) - Spanton (147), Highbury (London) Rapid 1990. Who stands better, and by how much?

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This ending is a trivial win for Black, but is a good illustration of how much more powerful a bishop can be than a knight when there are rival pawn-majorities. It also shows how even the most overwhelming position can be thrown away with one careless move.

39...a5 40.h4 a4 41.h5 a3 42.h6 Bg8 43.Nf5 a2 44.Ne3

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44...Kc3

Avoiding 44...a2=Q?? 45.Nc2+, when it is White who has a trivial win.

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