Studying the endgame

 In the past I have invested quite some time in trying to get some aptness in treating the endgame. To little avail. Due to poor endgame books on the one hand, and to the predilection of chess authors for freak compositions on the other. I worked my way trough the endgame books of Euwe, who was quite influential in the Netherlands for apparent reasons. In his rabid zeal to be complete, I was obliged to work through nine chapters of irrelevant material, which you get probably once in a lifetime on your board. If you are lucky. Only to discover in chapter 10 some useful material. If you don't know where to start, you buy a book of a former world champion who can save you work, so I thought naively.

Showing a freak composition of Grigoriev to a beginner is like exhibiting a differential equation to someone who struggles with 3 x 6. I do not doubt it is beautiful, but way over my head. The composition, not the differential equation 😋

41% of the games end with an endgame of some sort. My games didn't. I limited myself to the other 59%, always trying to mate my opponent. Losing points when there was no mate.

My new opening repertoire is geared around the endgame. Ok, of course I try to mate my opponent, but if there is no mate, I end up in a good endgame. At least that is the plan. And so it happens every now and then that I end up in an endgame, recently. Spilling half points like there is no tomorrow.

NIC has done a great job with "100 endgames you must know". There is hardly any redundancy in the material, and the Chessable learning system is very efficient.

The tournaments I'm about to visit in July / August, have a regimen of 40 moves in 90 minutes, subsequently 30 minutes extra time + 30 seconds extra time per move from move 1. When you are in pursuit of a delusional mate that isn't there, then 30 seconds extra time per move makes no difference. But in an endgame, the difference can be huge if you don't need to think about the plan you have to follow. Thinking about plans should be limited to the study room, in the tournament hall you need skill.