after reading an endgame book of jeremy silmans i have grown to think the rook is the hardest piece to master. it is so complicated and with the slightest mistake made in the endgame from a rook can turn a won position to drawn a drawn position to lost. there are just way too many different things that rooks bother me with that make me believe that the rook is the hardest piece to master. not the pawn.
The Knight.
I once played an IM OTB where he gambited a pawn. I held on and eventually got into an ending I felt was won for me with 2B&3P vs his 2Ns&2P. Despite my Bs having good lines he made mincemeat of me with those Knights, picking off my pawns 1 by 1 while my Bs looked on helplessly. Then he gave up his Knights for my Bishops and queened his last pawn. In the end the whole game was won on a single tempo.
the most errors I commit are with pawns. even with special consideration for the last 6 months or so, still the most frequent move I miss is a pawn move.
the second place goes for the king moves. I often move the king too late (defensively) or don't activate soon enough. usually because I didn't even think about the king move.
visualizing knight moves are yet another problem I realized just a couple of weeks ago. I found out I'm looking for just a single square at a time, when I think I should see all the 8 squares immediately. I'm often calculating simple knight moves, but I should really see those right away. I'm way too slow, but so are my opponents, and it doesn't really matter that much because of that.
Originally posted by Dragon Firepost the pgn of that game
The Knight.
I once played an IM OTB where he gambited a pawn. I held on and eventually got into an ending I felt was won for me with 2B&3P vs his 2Ns&2P. Despite my Bs having good lines he made mincemeat of me with those Knights, picking off my pawns 1 by 1 while my Bs looked on helplessly. Then he gave up his Knights for my Bishops and queened his last pawn. In the end the whole game was won on a single tempo.
To master the knight moves is difficult. I remember last year I did microdrill exercises everyday to master the pieces. I found the knight movements the most difficult.
Also, handling Queen is difficult. On an open board, the queen is powerful: she can create lots of tactical possibilities.
i'm just saying in general endgames with rooks are the hardest to win. there are so many different little rules. the middle game may not be hard to move him in, get him to the open files and threaten pieces in the middle of the board, but at the end of the game with a pawn up can you find a way to win with it is very difficult.
Originally posted by kmac27and just to make things worse, the rook endgame is the most common one of all! (the queens rooks just sit there all game while the other pieces get traded off)
i'm just saying in general endgames with rooks are the hardest to win. there are so many different little rules. the middle game may not be hard to move him in, get him to the open files and threaten pieces in the middle of the board, but at the end of the game with a pawn up can you find a way to win with it is very difficult.