Monday, March 31, 2008

Mask Your Bishops

From GM Patrick Wolff's wonderful book "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Chess":


I was one of the grandmasters who helped Anand prepare for match against Kasparov. One time, Anand and I were analyzing a chess position together, and I was trying to decided whether to move my (white) bishop to b3 or a2.

"You know, I had a position like this once," he said, "and I discovered that it is definitely better to put it on a2."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"When White bishop is on b3, it's easier for Black to see it. On a2, it's farther away, and so he might forget about it later in the game. And that's just what happened later in my game, when I captured his rook with the bishop on a2 he had forgotten about!"

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