Opposite Bishops: Two Pawns Win
White to play and win
PlayOpposite-colored bishops forgive almost everything, but not this: your two extra pawns stand far apart, and the defense cannot guard two doors with one king and a bishop that only sees half the board.
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Opposite Bishops: Two Pawns Win
Win against perfect defense
Waking the engine…
The theory
Opposite-colored bishops are the great drawing force of chess, swallowing one-pawn and even two-pawn advantages whole. The antidote is distance. Two extra passed pawns win when they are far enough apart that king and bishop cannot split the guard duties, and this position sits right on the winning side of the line.
The two-doors principle. Each passed pawn is a door the defense must lock. A defending king locks one door completely. The bishop can lock the other only if it blockades on a square of its own color AND has retreat squares along the diagonal when attacked. The attacker's plan writes itself: fix the king at one door with the near pawn, then walk the whole army to the far door and evict the bishop from a diagonal that is too short to run on.
The separation rule of thumb: pawns two files apart or less, the defending king covers both and the game is drawn; three or more files, with at least one pawn beyond the bishop's comfortable blockade, the overload wins. Rook pawns and wrong-colored corners add exceptions in the defender's favor, which is exactly why the drawn version of this material is a separate drill.
The style of the win is pure technique: no races, no tactics, just the slow transfer of force to the door the defense cannot reach. Opposite bishops punish impatience in both directions, and the tablebase here will hold forever if you let the near pawn's grip slip.