Log in  
Sign up

Play online chess!

From	Message
ionadowman 01-Feb-13, 11:48	Creativity in Endgames It seems to me that there ought to be at least one thread on the endgame. This one I think of as a forum for Club Members to share their own end games in which they take pride for determined defence, patient attack, or some sharp move or combination of moves that led to a win or the saving of the game. If you are lost in admiration of an opponent's clever end game play, why not share that too? In the meantime, here's a link to the 'original' creativity in endgames thread I began so long ago: gameknot.com
rmannstaedt 02-Feb-13, 02:33	Patience I think this one is under the heading "patient attack". I used to be rather sharp in endgames - that was before I took a 25 year hiatus from chess until last summer - and I always play with an eye for the endgame. My skill is not yet what it once was, but the following game is a good example nonetheless: tactical means are used to saddle my opponent with a pawn weaknesses early in the middlegame, and the rest is a slow and careful "patient attack" on his position: game Apart from the patience - one neat idea: the bishop maneuvre at move 44, blocking off his rook from the action: White to move. How to win?
tactical_abyss 02-Feb-13, 14:11	forboding Pirc doom... I am usually able to determine my opponents "motives"in a game when he asks for a draw,but in this game below,i'm not completly sure if he actually "thought"he had me in a draw or played that game...."well,I see an impending doom on the horizon",so I will ask TA for a draw,try to squeak out a draw and hope he falls for it!Have you ever had that?You feel you have positional dominance,but just slightly,maybe not enough and your opponent may or may not know it and asks for a draw?On the higher levels of play,it is true that draws are more frequent,and my GK record proves this.So,it requires extreme patience sometimes to continue in a game. game In this game,my opponent asks for a draw around move # 30,if I remember correctly.You can click on move #30.But you will see that while blacks King is more protected than whites,white has more central control of the light squares and dominance in the center.Also Blacks dark square Bishop is hemmed in,whereas whites dark square Bishop has much more freedom of movement and is "bearing down pressure"on blacks problem child...his d6 pawn.So the "value"of my Bishop exceeds the value of blacks Bishop.But in the Pirc(something i'd advise NOT to play against TA),that d6 pawn DOES many times cast a gloomy shadow of hemming in pieces as the endgame proceeds,which inturn can cause disadvantages.Kinda reminds me of playing a French defense,which can have similar problems with hemming in pieces.Thats why you will NOT find a "Pirc" in my game database playing the black side! Jumping to move 44....Qe3,constant pressure on the semi open e file,while constantly threating blacks f pawn.After that his moves become weaker.His pawn advances do not correlate with appropriate strength,my h pawn begins a crowding effect on blacks already multithreatened d and f pawn and blacks disconnected and unprotected "a" pawn has more threat going for it than my disconnected pawn on b3.Also notice blacks Queen,reduced to perhaps 7 points....due to the fact that it is being wasted and also hemmed in to protect his pawns. The end and doom for black is on the horizon... Now on move # 51,comes... Bxf6!Which temporily gives me an "on the surface" point disadvantage.after that he folds,for he sees that the capture of his c pawn,and an exray attack on his K/Q position is imminent. So in an endgame,one must exploit any weakness your opponent has.The pirc was his first mistake and black should have developed that d pawn by mid game,instead of freezing it,which was a problem child throughout the game for him. But that problem was multiplied with lack of development in his other pieces as well...
ionadowman 02-Feb-13, 16:25	rmannstaedt... I think you were right to play Bf2 in the diagram position. I did look at Bd8ch-Bxg5, but the resulting rook ending, even 2 pawns ahead, looks a bit dangerous for White. I liked the tactical finish, too: very nice.
ionadowman 02-Feb-13, 17:18	Draw offers... It is possible that at move 30, in the tactical_abyss vs gasparinov game (see TA's posting preceding 2 Feb 13), that Black figured that without winning chances himself, his position was solid enough to hold out against anything White might throw at it. Fair enough, then, but he would have had to accept that the chances of White's agreeing would be pretty low. My own attitude to draw offers is this. The player whose winning chances are the greater should be the one to make the offer even when the ending is a book draw. In this situation back in 2006 - b - although (as Black) I knew this to be a book draw, I didn't offer (before White played Rxf7ch). So far as I was concerned it was opponent's place to make the offer, and I didn't blame him at all for testing my endgame technique (...Kg8!). After about 6 or 8 moves, the offer did come and we split the point. The main feature of this game, by the way, was my defending a rook and multiple pawn ending a pawn down, after the last minor pieces were exchanged. But never again could I play V. Hort's ...Qd8-a5-a4 line in the Winawer French. Much more recently this position arose after 21 moves of a Modern Benoni in a team game: w The game continued with a tactical flurry: 22.g3 Nxd5 23.Red1 Bxe5 24.Bxd5 Bxb2 25.Bxf7ch Kxf7 26.Rxd6 Bxc1 27.Rd7 Bxa3 28.Qb3ch c4 29.Rxe7ch Kxe7 ... At this point, give or take a move or so, I offered (again with the Black pieces) the draw. Although Black has the nominal material edge, you might suppose that White's winning chances are the greater. I didn't think so. For mine, the c-pawn was so strong that White could not afford to ignore it for long - if at all. At the same time, I could see no way to evade the enemy Queen for long enough to drive the pawn home. All things considered, therefore, I considered my offer justified. 30.Qe3ch ... White declined my offer! Did he know something I didn't? But I wasn't especially surprised. There was no reason for him to take my word for it. 30... Kf8 Being a little cagey. White has no checks. 31.Qe6! Rc7! After some thought I decided that I would make sure I kept that c-pawn 32.Qf6ch Ke8 Offering to sacrifice my entire K-side. 33.Qh8ch Kd7 34.Qxh7ch Kc8 I seriously considered 34...Kc6 here, but decided that if White wanted the g-pawn, it would be with a non-check. 35.Qg8ch! Kb7 36.Qd5ch ... At this point White made his draw offer, which I accepted. On another day I might have carried on, as Black still has all the chances, in my view. White has to 'prove' he can check Black's King forever. Draw.
jkarp 04-Feb-13, 13:25	Okay, this is not creative but important. In most cases, if you are winning before an endgame, you can usually hold on to that advantage. However, if you have a winning edge, use it wisely. Do not become overconfident, or a win could turn into a loss. As Jack Stockel would say, "When you think that you have won or are in a winning position, be very careful, and do not underestimate your opponent. Otherwise, you might start making mistakes and losing the game." Believe it or not, one example happened in my game against anitam. It was toward the end and I had almost made a couple of promotions, as I was a piece and two pawns ahead. However, I became careless because I thought that she could do what she wanted, whenever she wanted, as I was going to win, no matter what. As a result, I essentially what she had gotten, a pawn promotion, and it was all over from then on.
jkarp 04-Feb-13, 13:26	the Annotation BTW, I annotated that game, and the annotation is shown below. gameknot.com
ionadowman 04-Feb-13, 21:41	jkarp That was an interesting game with many instructive moments. Possibly the most telling was right at the end of the game when this position was reached. w At this point, White forgot that 1.d8ch was possible because the knight is covering the d8 square! But even without promoting at once (obvious now that it would have been the best move, though), both 1.g6 and 1.Kf3 would also have won. 1.Nc5 was just about the worst move on the board. But it does bring me to this position. Suppose the Knight were not on the board at the time? What would the result have been? w White still wins, and, not only that, 1.d8=Qch is a winning move! Check it out: 1.d8=Qch! Kxd8 2.g7 d2 3.g8=Qch Ke7 4.Qd5 and White wins. I said 'a winning move', as 1.g7 also wins 1.g7 d2 2.g8=Q ... (d8=Qch wins by transposing into the previous line) 2...d1=Q 3.Qe8ch Kf6 4.d8=Qch Qxd8ch 5.Qxd8ch.
ionadowman 04-Feb-13, 22:50	Pawns vs King One of the issues that might have come out of the jkarp game concerns an unaided pair of pawns vs a King, also unaided. Joined pawn will hold a King, but generally speaking can not defeat one, if the King is on hand. in the following diagram, neither side can win w But split pawns are a whole different gig Consider this: w White to play, simply moves his King 1.Kd2, say, and places Black in 'zugzwang'. E.g. 1.Kd2 Ke7 2.c7 and Black's King is cut off from approaching the queening square, so that the c-pawn will promote and win. So powerful are the split pawns that the result of this position is not what you would think: w White to play, obviously moves his King: where to? 1.Kd1!! c3 2.Kc2 e3 3.Kd3 c2 4.Kxc2 e2 5.Kd2 d3 6.Ke1 d2ch 7.Kxd2 e1=Qch 8.Kxe1 and wins. To be continued...
ionadowman 04-Feb-13, 23:01	Pawns vs King II A motif that appeared, in somewhat modified form in Jkarp's game was this w Pawns on the 5th rank, split by more than 2 squares, will defeat the enemy King even if it is standing next to one of the pawns. 1.d6 Ke6 2.g6 Kxd6 If Black doesn't take the pawn, the situation is the same as before, but one rank closer to the 8th rank. 3.g7. Note that one rank further back won't do: w 1.d5 Ke5 2.g5 Kxd5 3.g6 Ke6 4.g7 Kg7 5.g8=Q Kxg8 = But one rank farther back, if the pawns are split by 3 or more squares: w 1.c5 and White wins.
jkarp 18-Feb-13, 17:16	This Time, Against Mr. Stockel I have another interesting end game to show. This time, it is a special coaching game Jack Stockel. Believe it or not, this game was epic, historic, and in one respect, a life changer. I actually won Jack's Queen, for one of my Rooks, which is extremely rare. In that, I almost won the game, but I made one mistake that turned a win into a loss. That game is shown in the annotation below. gameknot.com

GameKnot: play chess online, Internet chess league, free online chess games database, monthly chess tournaments, chess teams, chess clubs, online chess puzzles and more.