That is an exaggeration based on one particular position. Pawns on both wings means nothing. Take for example the position from the famous Saidy vs Fischer (1964) game. Semi open position, pawns on both wings, no blocked pawns. Position is probably slightly better for black but Fischer won that game easily (partly because he is the Fischer).bob wrote: Bishop and knight are not "near equal" in an endgame with pawns on both wings. Bishop is clearly superior there as it can reach squares in one move that take a knight 2-3 (or more) moves to reach. I have an evaluation term for this, where I think the idea came from Fine/Kmoch/et. al.
[D]6k1/1p1n1ppp/p7/3p4/3P4/P7/1P3PPP/2B3K1 w - - 0 1