The beginning of a good foundation.
Seven weeks now I'm working on pawn endings and I'm getting a feeling for the basics now.
I spilled a lot of time due to authors with little educational skills, but I worked my way around it.
It is just a matter of familiarizing myself with about 150 basic positions.
It was a lot of work to gather these positions and to sift the non-educational from the useful positions.
I made a cautious start with rook endings. It is already clear that I have to go thru the same process of sifting there (bleah).
It is difficult to play off endings against the computer.
The first time I entered a position in Arena it reacted even before the very first move with "I resign!"
Since the user interface of Arena is almost as bad as Fritz', it took me an hour to find out how to disable resigning.
Most chess engines don't work very well in endgame positions (as Montse found out lately) so I use the Nalimov tablebases. Problem with that is that it often says something like "oh, a resilient defence is lost with mate in 42, but if I walk straight to the middle of the board with my king it is mate in 43", thus choosing the less resilient defense to play against.
If I want to relax from the heavy stuff I do some fun endings against the computer like K+N+B vs K, Q vs N, Q vs R and the like.
I spilled a lot of time due to authors with little educational skills, but I worked my way around it.
It is just a matter of familiarizing myself with about 150 basic positions.
It was a lot of work to gather these positions and to sift the non-educational from the useful positions.
I made a cautious start with rook endings. It is already clear that I have to go thru the same process of sifting there (bleah).
It is difficult to play off endings against the computer.
The first time I entered a position in Arena it reacted even before the very first move with "I resign!"
Since the user interface of Arena is almost as bad as Fritz', it took me an hour to find out how to disable resigning.
Most chess engines don't work very well in endgame positions (as Montse found out lately) so I use the Nalimov tablebases. Problem with that is that it often says something like "oh, a resilient defence is lost with mate in 42, but if I walk straight to the middle of the board with my king it is mate in 43", thus choosing the less resilient defense to play against.
If I want to relax from the heavy stuff I do some fun endings against the computer like K+N+B vs K, Q vs N, Q vs R and the like.
When can we expect your book on pawn endings?
ReplyDeleteTake a break from the routine drills and play some games. I'd get burntout.
ReplyDeleteBlue, it's clear a good book is much needed. I think I'm able to write a bestseller. As soon as a publisher shows interest I will do it.:)
ReplyDeleteChristopher, it is a pity you get burnt out because of my drills. Actually I had cut down on games lately because endgame study is so fascinating. I'll see what I can do for you:)
ReplyDelete