I Have Been Dubbed
Don has dubbed me The Fair Knight. He says it's because I'm courteous. I guess I have to watch the swear words from now on. Here is what I found in the dictionary on the word "fair".
(adj) Visually appealing
(adj) Of no exceptional quality or ability
(adj) Attractively feminine
Ok, don't get the wrong ideas guys. I'm not "that" kind of man. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Hey, I got picked for a team! Yay for me. They are called the Pomaranch Team. I forgot what it means though. Something about the color of the flag. They are Ukrainian. I know, I know, I'm not Ukrainian but I guess they needed another guy with a low rating to help bring down the average. We will be in the U1600 section in FICS. I'm looking forward to the tournament.
Funny story about the team captain. He contacts me in FICS and I am chatting with him. He tells me there is this tip that he thinks is the best for chess improvement. I'll give you three guesses what that tip was and the first two don't count. Yup that's right. "400 Points in 400 Days" baby! He is on day 39 if I remember correctly. So I send him to my blog and he is all stoked about it. What are the odds? I told him to see Don if he ever considers blogging his experiences.
Lastly, a new thought on chess study. Endings should be studied in the beginning. The Russians believed this and they drill the young students in endings from the start. They believe that the best time to learn endings is when your mind is young and you absorb more. That is the one area of chess that remains static. Even our board drills is a form of endgame study. We are learning how a queen is best positioned against a lone king and a major or minor piece. Another advantage is you get to see how a piece works when it has the use of the whole board. What it can and can not do. Anyway, just my 2 cents.
6 Comments:
Endgametraining doesn't bite the system of the la Maza. I have a CD from Convekta with 2400 endgame problems. But once addicted to tactics, not much games are decided by endgames. I am sure that there will be a point that tactics will bring you no further. Opinions on where this is differ, but it seems to be between rating 2000-2100. I don't like to do things halfhartedly, so I will try to push tactics training to the limits. After that I'm sure I will be an enthousiastic endgame trainee.
I like endgame problems. They are almost tactical in there nature with the calculating. I also find myself in more endgame situations than I probably should. But my recent wins on the board have all been through a significant material advantage in the beginning which I just carry out to the end. In fact, after I finish this program, I am probably going to mix up my study between even more tactics and endgames.
PMD,
You are right about the tactical nature of endgames. But the toolkit you use is different. In the middlegame it is all about pins, forks, dubbel attacks and so on. In the endgame you use an extended toolkit with zugzwang, opposition, promotion, break-through, blockade, fortress, mating net, stalemate etc..
Papa Polgar has divided the middlegame in different 77 categories (some of them opening- specific). This 77 middlegame-categories can be split in tactical and positional categories.
He divides the endgame in 171 categories.
The amount of energy I put in both study-areas is regulated by the amount of games I loose on the middlegames or endgames. Thusfar 90% is caused by middlegame flaws.
And that's the only reason why I analyze my own games. Not for learning to play chess, but for finding out if my study heads in the right direction.
As I said in an earlier post, it doesn't matter if you use tactical problems, positional problems or endgame problems with the 7 cycles of MDLM.
I think the Russians are probably right. If you want to breed a grandmaster, you probably should start them off with endgames.
For us adults, it is too late.
For my kids, well, I don't want them to grow up to be grandmasters. Seeing how chess players are treated and how many of them turn out quite twitchy, I wonder why anyone would want their kid to grow up to be a grandmaster.
Never say NEVER!!!!!
A big part of the endgame is knowing lots of standard theoretical positions, so that way in the late middlegame or early endgame you can try to transition into a known win or draw (or know how to avoid letting your opponent make those transitions.
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