Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Endgames

Grandmaster Joel Benjamin played in1986 a game against GM Victor Korchnoi.
Korchnoi routineously traded off the rooks in a rookending end got a pawnending what he simply won by a Kings triangulation. Benjamin was very surprised that Korchnoi played a tempo and that he himself consumed the full time.
When the game ended, Korchoi said to Benjamin "I know something about Kings triangulation." Benjamin was very surprised about this "cryptic remark" and speaks out his admiration about Korchnois endgame play: "So I can't play". Then it's Korchnois turn to react very surprised "but this is the ABC of chess."

What you can read between the lines here is that it is actually possible to become a grandmaster without knowing anything about endgames.
Mind you, I'm not saying that endgame study is useless, I'm only trying to show things from a different perspective.

TCT# prbscircle 1circle 2circle 3

circle 4

circle 5

circle 6

circle 7

Stp354096%97%

97%

99%

99%

NA

NA

Stp456094%95%95%

97%

99%

NA

NA

Stp558075%84% 89%

80 done

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5 comments:

  1. I agree, although you certainly cannot become a GM without strong calculation abilities. I think that endgame study encourages calculation "muscle" building, which indirectly improves your whole game.

    Certainly different approaches have worked for different people.

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  2. Endgames are definitely on my to to list. After I am through the 7 circles ...

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  3. I came across a comment of fischer that went like this - "...And as Olaffson showed me, there was a win. So I stayed up all night analysing, and incidentally learned a lot about rook and pawn endgames" - fischer was already a world-class GM then. So it seems to imply that maybe a GM no matter how strong, will always have something he doesnt know. Or maybe its just not possible to master all the dimensions of the game. Just Mastering a few would be enough.

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  4. I came across a comment of fischer that went like this - "...And as Olaffson showed me, there was a win. So I stayed up all night analysing, and incidentally learned a lot about rook and pawn endgames" - fischer was already a world-class GM then. So it seems to imply that maybe a GM no matter how strong, will always have something he doesnt know. Or maybe its just not possible to master all the dimensions of the game. Just Mastering a few would be enough.

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  5. I think GM's have to know a lot about a lot to get the GM title. However, just like with doctors, some "specialize" in different aspects of the game.

    ReplyDelete