White to playvan Wely - Wojtaszek, Wijk aan Zee (2) 2015 Someone told me during a recent tournament that he did not need to study the endgame because of his last twenty-two games only two had reached this stage. Later in the same tournament I saw him self-destruct in a position where he could have made it to a slightly worse endgame that offered drawing chances.Jacob Aagaard, Excelling at Chess Aagaard’s book might have been published 15 years ago, but that passage could have been written for van Wely’s game at Wijk last week. OK, the details are all wrong. Were talking about a king and pawn ending not endgames in general, the possibility to trade down occurs is a queen ending rather than a middle game and the question is can White win rather than will he save the game. We might add that vW obviously has studied pawn endings at some point. Yes, the specifics are out of whack, but the central point is exactly the same. To whit: it can be helpful to know positions and ideas even if you never actually get them onto a board during a practical game. Forthcoming when I wrote The Final Move of 2014, but now published.pdf sample available here It doesn’t matter if you’re a Super GM playing in an elite tournament or average Joe or Josephine Chesser playing in a local league. Knowing when to head into a pawn ending and when to keep the piece on is going to get you extra points over the years. In addition to Ivanchuk - Jobava from last week (SMA#30) and van Wely - Wojtaszek, we could add Vachier-Legrave - Hou Yifan from Wijk’s first round ... White to play and trade? .. or how about this rook ending from the London League? Ditto This last example, also played in the last few days, comes courtesy of a couple of chessers rated 130ish and 150ish ECF. It’s still the same BORP? conundrum, though. van Wely got it wrong and kept the queens on. What about the other two? Liquidate or not. That is the question.
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 10:43:55 +0000
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