GM R.

B Ramesh-
52 Week Program
Week 26-League of Bishops
Introduction:-
In this session, GM R.B Ramesh analyses how to play with two bishops or
famously known as “bishop pair” ! He tells us how to get advantage with the
bishop pair and gives us some conditions and positions under which bishop
pair performs extremely well. Such conditions are:-exchanging the central
pawns, creating passed pawns on the flanks, limiting opponent’s knight
activity with the pawns and many more interesting stuffs.
Two Bishop Principals:-
• We should restrict opponent’s knights with the pawns.
• Don’t give outposts to opponent’s Knights.
• The side with two bishops should try to enter the endgame as bishop
pair becomes more powerful in the endgame.
• Pushing rook pawns such as h4-h5 or a4-a5 to gain space is a good
idea to restrict your opponent.
• Try to increase the distance between opponent’s pawn chain. We
should initiate such pawn exchanges like-a pawns and c pawns ,b
pawns and d pawns as they increase the distance between the pawns
and it becomes difficult for the knights to hop on both the sides of
the board.
• Bishop pair works effectively with passed pawns.So we should try to
create passed pawn to maximise the power of bishop pair.
Continued…
• In the middle-game or early endgame we can pull back the bishops,
we can use them later on as per the requirement.
• At anytime we can either exchange one or both the bishops in order
to enter favorable endgame.
• It is not mandatory to retain the bishop pair advantage till the end ,we
can anytime exchange them to get benefit out of it.
• Bishops are good when there are no central pawns.
• Don’t fix the pawn structure and make them as flexible as possible.
• Choose the color wisely for your pieces. For instance if our opponent
has a dark square bishop then we should put our pieces on the light
squares and vice-versa.
• Bishop pair can compensate the bad pawn structure, so we should
not worry if we end up having a bad pawn structure with two bishops.
 Position 1
(White to move)
In this position it’s white to move and here
Ramesh says there are three main moves
which white should consider. Which are as
follows:-
1-h4 activating the h1 rook
2-c3 blunting the bishop on g7
3-Kb1 removing the king from semi-open c
file.
The game continued h4,Nc6.Here Ramesh
says we shouldn’t touch the ‘h’ pawn either
by capturing the ‘g’ pawn or pushing it to
h5 and keep it as it is. As a famous saying
goes- ‘ Threat is better than execution’. The
game continued c3,Nf6,Nb6 retaining the
Continued…
Extra knight. Ramesh says, in general we should retain one knight along
with bishop pair as knight can perform other tasks which bishops can’t
perform. Game continued…Nb6,Rd8,f3 (restricting the knight),g4,h5!
(preventing black’s Nh5 and also preventing dark square bind with be5 and
Ne5), 0-0,Bg2!! (coming up with amazing
setup),Nb8,f4,Nbd7,Nc4(retaining the knight),Nc5,Bh4(improving the
bishop), Rfe8,Bf3,b5 ,Na5,Nce4,Rhg1,d5,Nc6,Rd6(Here Rc8 is not possible
because of Nxe7+,Rxe7, Bxe4,if Rxe4,,Bxf6 and if Nxe4 ,Bxe7 losing for
black.),Ne5,Rg2,Kf8,Rdg1,Ne8,Ng4,Rc8,Kb1,a5,Ne3,N4f6,Bxf6,Rxf6,Nxd5,
Rd6,f6,exf6(Bg7 is dead now),Ne3!,Rc5,Bg4(Here Bd1-Bc2,Nf5 was
better),b4,axb4,axb4,Nf5,Rd8,Bh3,Rd3,
 Position-2
(White to Move)
Continued position2…
In this position it’s white to move and
here Ramesh says white needs to
activate the dark square bishop as
quickly as possible with f5!.The possible
line could be like this-
f5,exf5,gxf5,gxf5,Qd2 pressuring the ‘h6’
pawn and if g5 after gxf5 then f6 gives
white the substantial advantage. But in
the game line went like this-
Kd2,a6,Qb1,Qa5, Qb2 and the game
ended in draw. Here white had option to
play f5 after a6 and Qa5 but white
hesitated to play the critical move ‘f5’
and the game ended in draw.
Important Take-away from the
session-
• If the opponent goes out of opening theory, then we should adapt our
plan accordingly rather than driving the game to our known territory
• Learning should be a continuous process and we should not be
pessimistic of our own potential.
• We should not learn chess just to gain some rating points or to win any
particular tournament but our main motive should be to become strong
player.
• There is nothing wrong in expecting better results, but once we become
a strong player good results will follow and sustain for longer period of
time.
• There is no substitute of ‘Hardwork’, we should work hard on our chess
learning process.
Continued…
• We should always strive to learn new things, which could be either
learning new opening or new ideas. As such practice make us a holistic
player and covers up our weaknesses.
• For e.g.- If you are an attacking player then you should work on your
positional chess. Similarly, if you play e4 with white then you should try d4
,c4 etc.
• By trying out new ideas and strategies we broaden our ‘chess horizon’ and
it enables us to become a better and balanced chess player.
• We shouldn’t have a lazy approach while learning chess. For instance
learning chess through playing ‘blitz’ games or fast time-control games
should never be an option.
• We should always learn chess in a systematic and disciplined manner.
 ‘Quote’
‘Every chess master was once a beginner’
-Irving Chernev