Fisabilillah vs Hakimifard

Two pawns face each other in the centre, the white one on e5, the black one on d6. As long as the tension is left on the board, White keeps the pawn storm with h4 and h5 in reserve, because the black kingside stands untouched. The tidy move is 14...dxe5, which resolves the tension and takes that storm away from White for good. Twelve and a half minutes go by on the clock, and then comes 14...g6.

The move weakens the f6 and h6 squares, shifts the g7 pawn to g6 and hands the white h-pawn a target that was not there before. Objectively it is an inaccuracy, not a losing move: the balance drifts from a quarter of a pawn for Black to a third of a pawn for White. In practice, though, a very concrete white plan is waiting, and it begins with 15.h4. After 15.h4 b6 16.h5 Bxf3 17.Qxf3 dxe5 the position is level again, but along that whole road the h5 pawn presses on g6, and Black plays two moves in a row of pure defence.

In the game came 15.Rfe1, a good developing move but not the one the position called for. That was the end of the question: 15...dxe5 answered at once, 16.Nxe5 Nxe5 17.Bxe5, and the centre was no longer standing. The rule stays anyway, and it is the same one as in round six: if you fear or want to prevent an enemy wing advance, look for the answer in the centre, not on the same wing. And if you make a safety move next to your own king, count first what target you give the opponent that was not there before.

Five moves later another quarter of an hour goes on a single move. After 19.h4 the storm that 14...g6 had invited signs on again, and the question is whether Black simplifies now or carries the tension. Twelve minutes and thirty-one seconds, almost to the second the same as on the pawn move on move fourteen, and this time the right move stands at the end of it: 19...Bxe5.

The trade takes away the second white piece that pointed at the black king. The bishop on e5 had stood on the a1 to h8 diagonal, now a rook stands there, and a rook on e5 blocks no attacker. 20.Rxe5 Rd5 puts the white rook to the question at once: trade or step back, every square further from the centre costs activity. The practical judgement is clear: with one bishop fewer aimed at the kingside, the h4 pawn is only a pawn.

The move is the best in the position and is played as such; it costs no fraction of a pawn. The lesson it leaves: trade pieces when the trade improves the one you keep. The black bishop on c6 can no longer be disturbed, because no white bishop reaches it any more, and the rook on d5 suddenly has an open file in front of it.

White answers with 22.h5 to the doubled black rooks, and Black takes eight minutes for the continuation: 22...Rxe5 23.Rxe5 Rd5. The second rook takes the place of the first, and the question is asked again. White tries 24.Qg5 as a last try at activity, the queen pointing at the black king, but Black covers with 24...Qd8 and offers the next trade at the same time.

What follows is 25.Rxd5 Qxd5 26.Qxd5 Bxd5, and in four half-moves a rook, a queen and a pair of bishops are off the board. What is left is one bishop each on same-coloured squares, seven pawns against seven, not a single square that would be weak for one bishop and out of reach for the other. White finishes the centre with 27.c4, then 28.hxg6 hxg6, and the white pawn storm has shrunk to one bishop trade more and no pawn.

The rule of this section comes from the order of the trades. If you want to take the danger out of a difficult position by simplifying, you trade in the right order: first the attackers on your king, then the heavy pieces, last the minor pieces. That is exactly what happened here, and what stands afterwards is objectively a draw.

On the board stand two bishops on light squares and four pawns each side of the middle. The white pawns on c4 and d4 sit on light squares that hem in their own bishop; the black pawns on e6, f5 and g5 sit on squares the black bishop no longer needs. No pawn can be attacked that a second one does not defend or a king does not reach, and the kings stand where they let each other through nowhere.

White has been under five minutes since move thirty-five and will play the last moves in seconds; Black still has twenty minutes and must decide whether the opponent’s clock is a reason to play on. The position itself offers no winning attempt: 33...b6 fixes the last mobile pawn, 34.Bd3 Bb7 35.Be2 Bc6 36.Bd3 Bb7 37.Be2, and the white bishop walks the same road twice while the black one shuttles between c6 and b7. Half a point.

The lesson lives in the pawn grid, not in the bishops. In an endgame with bishops of the same colour, the decision belongs to whichever side’s pawns stand on the other-coloured squares: if they are mobile, there is a game left; if they are locked, the point is shared. Before you liquidate into an endgame, count both sides’ pawns on the colour of the surviving bishop, and if both sides have the same number and they block each other, you know what the endgame has become.