The comments of the Knights on my blog are very important to me.
With an ICT-background I allways despise "implicit assumptions".
In the mean time I perpetrate this crime often myself.
But gladly there are allways Knights who are willing to show me the flaws in my reasoning!
I had for example the idea that a drawish opening was the fastest way to reach an endgame.
But there is no logic behind this implicit assumption, as FunkyFantom showed me with his comment:
The best way to increase your odds of reaching endgames is to play people as close to your own rating as possible.
He is right, of course.
The reason I don't reach endings is because I'm used to play on "bend or break".
This means that I take much time to force things.
The result is either a crushing win or a draw in better position because of time trouble, or a loss when I'm making a mistake.
But the reason I play so forcefully is that I have only one plan: attack the king.
There is no plan B. Especially when I can't find an immediate win I come in time trouble.
If there was a plan B (simplification to a promising -or at least equal- ending), I could play much more relaxed.
But I don't trust my endgame skills, so I never let that happen.
Actually to play open games as I do is the fastest way to reach an ending, because in an open position it is easier to trade pieces.
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I had the same 'problem' of not getting into endgames a while ago. Like you, it was 'crush or be crushed', which I thought was fine at the time. Then I came to the realisation that some of those 'being crushed' could be transformed into draws or even wins with a well played endgame. I did some further thinking, and found out I had actually been avoiding endgames, simply because I didn't know a thing about them. Now I'm going through the basic theory. And it has already made a big difference, I reach a lot more endgames than before. But the downside is I'm a lot less aggressive, which brings different problems to deal with...
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