My 2nd principal work.
(Quality Chess 2014, 192 pages)
Esben Lund: The Secret Life of Bad Bishops, Quality Chess 2014.
Note: A limited number of signed copies are available at my home address in New York.
The biggest takeaways from the book are:
- Introducing the Doubled-Edged Bishop (DEB) to avoid that the bishop is prematurely labelled as a bad bishop based on its visual appearance
- All phases of the game are treated – from the opening over the middlegame to the endgame
- A total of 46 exercises for the reader to solve, in order to test the newly enhanced knowledge
- Stressing that the bishop is a team player – strong on its own color, but helpless on the opposite color – and that space and remaining pieces are two important other factors to correctly evaluate a position
- The goal keeper logic: it is okay to assign one piece (the bishop) to be a passive defender – temporarily or permanently – as long as the position overall is not passive
- The logical connection between the DEB and the positional exchange sacrifice, explained with 3 different scenarios
- A fresh look at the endgame bishop versus knight with focus on the isolated, color-blind bishop and on the difference in strength between the two minor pieces
- A unique and focused treatment of the endgame rook versus bishop built on the concept of a Fortress-Like Position (FLP)