Can you win chess with a king and a bishop

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Question feed. Chess Stack Exchange works best with JavaScript enabled. Accept all cookies Customize settings. Secondly, it helps to know what endgames you can head towards that will be winning when you have a material advantage. If you have a bishop and two pawns versus a bishop, it is fine to trade those bishops if you'll later be able to promote a pawn and win that way.

However, allowing the other player to trade their bishop for your two pawns will lead to a draw. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. So once again the player whose flag falls first loses, as it possible for both players to deliver checkmate. In this example, White has just played.

Nb3 , checkmate. Therefore, whoever consumes his playing time first loses the game, as mate is possible. It is important to examine some other cases that frequently cause confusion:. Gambling on a time advantage! However, if White has a time advantage, he has the right to try to win the game on time. Instead of taking the pawn, White can just make a series of moves in the hope that Black will run out of time. However, White must be careful that the same position is not repeated three times with the same player to move, as this results in an automatic draw.

The risk of this strategy is that it is always possible that White will be the first to run out of time, giving Black the game. Black cannot expect a draw because White has only king and bishop, as it is still possible for White to win! Now there is the same possibility given in Case Black could make the mistake of moving his or her king to h1 and the knight to g1, allowing Bg2, checkmate.

Given that 1. Kb6 is stalemate, and other moves result in the loss of the pawn , White could try to win on time with the moves 1. Kc5 or 1. If this happens, Black should not presume the game will end in a draw , as theoretical draws are not recognised after 1. Kc5 Kb7 2. Kb5 , Black could blunder with 2…Kc8?? This is a challenging position to find yourself in and while you can force a checkmate with these pieces, it requires perfect play, and it may take up to thirty-three moves to achieve!

The other three are king and queen, king and rook, and the king and two bishops of different colors. There are only 6 positions which can provide checkmate using these pieces with minor variations which allow the bishop to move further up or down the diagonal or for reflected or rotational symmetries.

Of these six positions, only the first three can be forced , the other three require errors on behalf of black to achieve.

If you were wondering what the board might need to look like for it to take the full 33 moves to force checkmate with these pieces — this is the starting position:.