The Sparse Board and Why a Bishop is Not Worse than a Knight

 The sparse board is one where there are relatively few pieces.  When the board is sparse, time, material and king safety become more critical.  I didn't plan to have a sparse board, but it happened to benefit me.  Most intermediate players don't realize how top players will keep their king safe in addition to playing fast and attacking. So as usual I will concentrate on the issue of king safety.  This is how the game ended with out opponents resigning:

Here Black (on the left board) played e5.  It seems innocuous enough.  It would be fine in chess, but in bughouse it is possible to exploit the dark square weakness more. I responded with d5, and now Black must use a tempo to move his knight.

I use the tempo to play @a6.  I think such an attack can be effective enough that Black should have played h6 instead of e5:

Black tried to defend, but here whoever has the tempo controls h6, and that is me:

So I put in a bishop.  We trade bishops and then I put in a knight.  It is good to control squares near my opponent's king:

So Black makes some meaningless trades.  They don't help on the other board either.  On the other board, white's queen is exposed.  On my board, my opponent attacks my bishop with N@h5 and I defend successfully with B@h8.

We now trade queens.  Nothing much is happening on the other board.  My king is pretty safe, but Black has a weakness at d7:

Blacks idea is to threaten my rook and threaten N@f3.  I find a move that defends f3, attacks the knight and attacks d7.  This is an example of how a bishop is just as useful as a knight.  I'm not worried about the rook.   It serves no purpose on either board:

So I take the free knight.  I am attacking f7 and defending f3:

So my opponent takes the useless rook and I give a critical check.  I don't think Black can survive because I control too many squares near his king.   I think I would take if I were Black;

Again a bishop does three things.  It attacks g7, e7 and the rook.  My opponent defends g7 with B@g7 and I take the rook:

He gives two checks.  I block the bishop check while attacking his bishop.

So he retreats with Bg7.  I play Bf6, threatening d8@, @e7 or Bxg7.  I receive a pawn from my partner and our opponents resign.  There is no way for Black to defend all threats: