Saturday, March 18, 2006

An undeserved win

When I'm getting better at endgames it becomes clear that I have to get used to undeserved wins and undeserved draws.
Now I have accepted long games as a good alternative for a crushing kingside attack I play much more relaxed. If an attack reports itself I go for it, if not, I quietly trade off all pieces.
Yesterday I played an important game. Only the queens and a lot of pawns were left on the board.
At a certain moment my opponent could force the exchange of queens. But he misevaluated the remaining pawn ending as lost for him. I knew it was actually lost for me.
So he hadn't the courage to trade off the queens, which gave me the opportunity to queen a pawn of my own and he resigned.

He had played the opening and the middlegame well. It is clear that his performance in the endgame nose dived. I assume that that holds true for most people at club level.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed is king. The so called endgame experts at clublevel are most of the time the one-eyed. So getting some real endgame skills will definitely pay off.

2 comments:

  1. With all the hours you are putting into endgames studies, I would classify it as a well deserved win.

    Long Live the One-Eyed King!!

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  2. >In the land of the blind the one-eyed is king.

    Welcome to my world!

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