hi, i have a question about these two different types of strategy. one hears a lot about endgame technique and how one should learn this first, before openings and middle game etc. my question is this, should one not decide beforehand what the adoptive strategy should be, ie. if one is going for an uncompromising all or nothing attack on the king or one is going to try to manoeuvre into a favourable endgame. the reason is this, that surely they both cannot be effective, how can we say to ourselves if one fails then i can try the other??, surley in an all or nothing attack on the king, many sacrifices may have to be made which would result in extreme difficulties should the attack fail and one has to face an ensuing endgame one, two or more pieces down, thanks for taking the time Robbie carrobie prolific chess noob, Pingu rules, noob noob.
Well... you don't attack unless you have the right to attack. Don't place your knights on your opponents side of the board unless they can't be chased away, or can use multiple outposts.
There are many reasons why an all-out attack on the king will succeed. Mostly because your enemies forces cannot defend properly, or must make concessions in order to do so. EDIT: They are out of position.
This is why, when you see that your opponent has a weakness on a complex of squares around the king, and cannot adequately defend them, you can make a sacrifice in order to exploit the weakness and imprison the king. This makes checkmate much easier. And you must be able to see this, and see that checkmate is possible by an invasion of the mating piece. EDIT 2: this vision will come with experience.
Yet, if your opponent plays and defends properly, you must almost certainly face an endgame. This is why endgames are so important to study. When you face equal opponents you will mostly be winning either by a greater knowledge of tactics or by a greater knowledge of endgames.
Openings get you to the middle game (which can be to someones advantage or to equality) and middle games act as the vehicle to either great tactics or great endgames (or great blunders).
Edit3: I am not a great player, but am getting better. So this is from my own understanding. 🙂
Originally posted by ChessJesteryes this is good, thanks, so our main objective should be, if we are going for an all out attack on the king to try and create a complex around our opponents king, ie. distract/exchange/remove forces away from a specific colour complex, try to get key pawns to advance etc and once this is achieved to try and exploit it. this brings me to another question, i read somewhere that it is not possible to forge ahead with an initiative on both colour complexes, ie one should try for an advantage on one colour complex only, can anyone enlighten me on this as its been really annoying me for ages - regards Robbie.
Well... you don't attack unless you have the right to attack. Don't place your knights on your opponents side of the board unless they can't be chased away, or can use multiple outposts.
There are many reasons why an all-out attack on the king will succeed. Mostly because your enemies forces cannot defend properly, or must make concessions in order to ...[text shortened]... it3: I am not a great player, but am getting better. So this is from my own understanding. 🙂
the trick is to do both. push and pull, force your opponent to give concessions, to accumulate weaknesses, and eventually something will give. the more you put pressure on him, the less he'll have time (tempi) to create problems for you.
of course, sometimes you'll do something stupid and have a lost endgame coming up. then your only option is to mate him before the endgame, so any additional material given is irrelevant if only it strengthens your attack.
but otherwise you shouldn't willingly create a lost endgame, it'll just make everything extremely easy for the other guy.
what I honestly think about "study the endgames first" advice given by many IMs and GMs is that they do not understand what's really going on in games under the 1800 level.
Almost all GMs and IMs who are book writers, begin their chess career with a 1800 rating on a very early age, and on a very early stage of their chess study. For most of them, getting to 1800 is trivial, it just happens naturally.
So that's why when they give advice to any beginners, I think they target 1800 players who already have a very decent experience and a very sharp tactical vision.
My experience is on the contrary. I have a very small number of games (I would say 5 percent) where I get into an endgame where both players have any winning chance, and this has started to happen only after I got above 1600 level, and all of this is only on correspondence games, in which the level of play should correspond to 1800s in OTB play (I suppose).
So, I still devote almost all of my study time to tactics and general middlegame strategies, instead of the endgame. I will only begin serious endgame study after 1800.
A weakness on a colour complex, for example the dark squares, actually can sometimes mean a weakening of the light squares also - think of a knight established on a dark square e.g. f6 - for Black this could result in his light squares being attacked also, particularly the sensitive h7 and g8 squares in this example.
Don't take my word for this, play through Szabo-Geller Zurich 1953 (which can be found in David Bronstein's "Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953" game collection book if you can't find this game elsewhere - I believe Amazon lets you look at this game if you are thinking of buying the book via the 'Look Inside' feature). See particularly Bronstein's notes to move 25 where there is a very beautiful possible continuation where White, having infiltrated the dark squares, exchanged off pieces and won material - every piece that was lost was taken off the light squares.
I'd just like to add further that you should only go for the throat and attack your opponent's king with some sort of justification (like what has already been mentioned e.g. weak colour complexes, not enough pieces within reach of the king to defend, numerical superiority on the kingside etc.).
Hope this helps.
I seriously doubt colour complexes are gonna have any effect under 2000... I also very much agree on what diskamyl said about endgames, my experience on rhp is very similar. although I suppose my weak endgames are one of the reasons why my blitz games often self-destruct after a great start. and you'll have to learn them at some point anyway, so it isn't like it was time wasted by any means. but it won't show in your rating until you start getting endgames in a significant amount of your games, which is something I'm still not getting at 1900.
Originally posted by diskamylNo,
So that's why when they give advice to any beginners, I think they target 1800 players who already have a very decent experience and a very sharp tactical vision.
.
The Grandmasters advice to learn the endgame applies to any beginner starting with the 900-1200's it's the right way to learn a beginners starts with very simple positions that are easy to understand like Rook and King vs King then he or she builds on this knowledge and gradually advances to the more difficult to acquire "Chess Vision".
Originally posted by Aristollewell... how is it working for you so far?
No,
The Grandmasters advice to learn the endgame applies to any beginner starting with the 900-1200's it's the right way to learn a beginners starts with very simple positions that are easy to understand like Rook and King vs King then he or she builds on this knowledge and gradually advances to the more difficult to acquire "Chess Vision".
I think that what a teacher means when they say to study endgames is to study basic stuff. Mating with rook, queen, thwo bishops etc. Then do things like the Lucena and Philidor positions. After that, you should know enough about endings to get you through 1600. WHat they are NOT saying is to study Knight vs Bishop endings with multiple pawns or two rooks and a queen against two minors, a rook and a queen. What is required early on is a basic, broad knowledge of endings and a deepening knowledge of middlegames.
Originally posted by robbie carrobieIn the Chess Book Club clan we are studying "The Art of Attack" by Vucovik (The Everyman Chess publication updated by John Nunn) and it covers the questions you are asking and more in some detail. I would say the book is really aimed at 1800+ players so I find it particularly hard work studying it sufficiently to benefit...but I was 1500 when I started and I do sense some benefit already and I'm determined to complete the book.
yes this is good, thanks, so our main objective should be, if we are going for an all out attack on the king to try and create a complex around our opponents king, ie. distract/exchange/remove forces away from a specific colour complex, try to get key pawns to advance etc and once this is achieved to try and exploit it. this brings me to another qu ...[text shortened]... only, can anyone enlighten me on this as its been really annoying me for ages - regards Robbie.
There is also a study guide containing all the games in chessbase format that myself and another player are working on by adding our own notes etc....using this makes it quite a bit easier to go through the games than setting up a board each time and you benefit from the insights of others in the notes.
In principle you'd be welcome to join the clan if you're interested but the leader has gone awol at the moment so we can't admit more players until his return...but if you're interested send me a pm...(we could always start a new clan)
Worth noting that of the 8/10 original contributors to this clan forum there are only two left!
Maybe due to chess/life balance issue or for some of them this may be due to the amount of time required to work properly through the games...idk but thought it might be worth letting you know that it's not been the holy grail for everyone.
On the other hand if you get excited by sacrifices on f7, colour complexes, focal points and the like then you might like it.
Originally posted by robbie carrobieWell as the game progresses, weakness will be naturally created. Also, you can try to force a weakness by creating threats that can only be defended by pawn moves.
yes this is good, thanks, so our main objective should be, if we are going for an all out attack on the king to try and create a complex around our opponents king, ie. distract/exchange/remove forces away from a specific colour complex, try to get key pawns to advance etc and once this is achieved to try and exploit it. this brings me to another qu ...[text shortened]... only, can anyone enlighten me on this as its been really annoying me for ages - regards Robbie.
You cannot succeed in an all-out attack unless there is a weakness to exploit. Thats called the "right to attack".
The simplest example is a hanging piece. That piece must be taken, because you have the right to do so. Or even, a mate-in-one... you have the right to mate your opponent and will successfully do so. This mate is created by the undefended weak square.
Some great games (someone may have pointed to them) are where white creates threats on the queenside, forcing the pieces there to defend, and then quickly (using a space advantage) switches the attack to the kingside. Because blacks pieces are stuck on the queenside and cannot defend the attack on the kingside, it is successful. White saw that there was a 'right' to attack and capitalized.
If you do not have that right to attack your attack will fail. Its hard to see this sometimes and I've realized that this vision will come only with experience.
In the meantime, study endgames.
🙄
Originally posted by Mahoutthat is so very kind, thankyou , but as yet i am a non subscriber and may hinder the progress of others, thanks ever so much - very considerate!
In the Chess Book Club clan we are studying "The Art of Attack" by Vucovik (The Everyman Chess publication updated by John Nunn) and it covers the questions you are asking and more in some detail. I would say the book is really aimed at 1800+ players so I find it particularly hard work studying it sufficiently to benefit...but I was 1500 when I started and I ...[text shortened]... by sacrifices on f7, colour complexes, focal points and the like then you might like it.
hi, I found the literature , the text is as follows, the following pieces (pawns, bishops and knights), wherever they may be positioned can only control the squares of a single colour from that position, this means that they can only cooperate when they control squares of the same colour. the logical conclusion is that the pursuit of the correct strategy means that we must be striving to play actively either on the white squares or the dark squares. this means compelling the opponents pieces to act on squares of the opposite colour, this can only come about if they are challenged, so we construct a simple rule, whoever wishes to be active either on the white (or dark) squares must strive to challenge the pieces of our opponent which are contesting those squares in order to get rid of the opposition on this colour complex.😀