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White to play
Two not entirely random rook endings. The first is me playing White against Vincent Sagues (ECF 166; Elo 1904) from round three of last August's Hampstead Open. In the second I'm White against Ray Ilett (ECF 166; Elo 1885) from round four of the Hampstead u-2200 in October. And, yes, I did manage to win both.
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66 f7+; 65 g7
Black resigns
I can't really be arsed to work out precisely how long it took to finally notch these two points, but I can tell you that the Sagues ending lasted 15 moves to Illet's 24 and, the time control including a thirty second increment each move, I ended up with more time than I started in both cases. Not very long and not that much effort required.
So why bother?
This sort of thing is a complete waste of time
If you want to be the best, if you want to beat the rest,
actually having to win this sort of ending is exactly what you need.
Me? I'm red pill all the way. Well, I am now. If I'd written this post last year, certainly back before I played a whole bunch of tournaments in the second half of 2011, my answer would probably have been different.
Anyhoo, enough about me. What about you?
Blue or Red Pill? Index
Rook and pawn Index
16 comments:
Rook and two connected is one of the simpler ones to win. Your second example shows what can happen if the defending King is away from the queening square. The first example shows the extra feature of these endings. If the defender plays to occupy the queening square, there's the winning possibility of advancing the attacking King in front of, or alongside the pawns, so as to set up a mating net, or forcing a Rook exchange. K+2 is a win in positions where K+1 is not.
RdC
I'm not really understanding the question. If you aspire to play chess beyond the beginner level, then obviously you have to be able to win endings like these.
I suppose What I'm asking is - is actually playing these positions out for real integral to learning how to win them or can you do it at home or on the net playing blitz?
I didn't get the question either. At least not from the text.
And even now I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. "Playing these positions out for real" isn't white's choice anyway. And yes, if you play some blitz you'll win hundreds of these positions, which should be more than enough practice.
Phille
Not so. Not so for me any way.
It's not White's choice in the position, I agree, but it is White's choice whether he/she enters a tournament. Play mostly club chess (as I did for 20 years or so) and you won't get anywhere near this kind of ending. Well maybe more so now that quickplay finishes are becoming more common, but still not as often as you'll get them in tournaments.
I don't find my blitz games come down to these theoretical positions either, btw.
Ok, fair enough. It is just a difference in our personal experience then.
My feeling is that this ending is very common, at least in blitz. Much more common then, say, KRB/KR or to take a winning ending, KNB/K.
And if it is less common in tournament games, the reason must be that it is rather easily and obviously won and so is avoided by the weaker side at all costs.
Phille
Ah, another point:
What constitutes this big difference between "club chess" and tournament chess in the UK?
And if you say "club chess", do you include league games? Or just club championships and the like?
Phille
I’d have thought either would work, though obviously if you want to learn about this ending specifically then playing a couple against your computer is going to be more targeted than entering a few tournaments and hoping such an ending turns up. I don’t really get the whole tournament/club chess distinction; I don’t notice any difference between whether tournament or club games reach endings. I wouldn’t have thought blitz was going to impart much wisdom about this kind of thing either.
Tournament chess in the UK as everywhere is play to finish, whether with or without increments.
In some parts of the UK, particularly the London area, the traditional practices of adjudication and adjournment still exist. Under adjudication you play up to only around forty or fifty moves (thirty sometimes in the past) in the usual evening sessions of two and a half to three hours and then the game ceases. The players try to agree what the result would have been had the game continued. If they don't agree a third party, an "adjudicator" will tell them. Adjournment may be better known, you record the next move "the sealed move" in secret and then come back another day to finish off the game. In an adjudication system, the adjudicator wins or draws endings for you, so you only need to know the assessment, not the method. Adjournment is a more conducive to endgame study with the caveats that players may resign without testing your technique and you can potentially only book up on as an required basis.
RdC
Well yeah, but I know for a fact Jonathan isn't over 65, and in my experience the only people who insist on either adjudication or adjournment are either those in their dotage or various twerps who think, quite rightly, that they're far inferior players to you and that they have more chance of drawing if you might have to give them a draw rather than schlepping down to some khazi in, say, Richmond to play on your winning position. Well, those and people who have suffered brain damage in a stroke and now can't play quickly, whom I excuse.
Well this is interesting. I had assumed that the difference between league chess and tournament chess (and chasers) was so obvious it didn't need explaining.
Perhaps it depends on where you play and at what level? I shall come back to it, though.
For the time being: I'm not convinced that a 3-hour league playing session without increments is an ideal way to get endgame experience.
e.g. I reckon that regardless of how much of a bank of time I had, if I was playing on 30 second increments I'd have a reasonable to pretty good chance of defending from the short-side defence position against pretty much anyone.
WIth no increments I couldn't say that.
Ah, thanks. I actually had heard about adjudication (I think it is mentioned in "Chess for Tigers"?!) I just wasn't fast enough to connect it to this distinction.
To me (i.e. in Germany) league games are the games where I might get some endgame practice, because the time control is usually longer and the general level of play higher, than in a typical tournament.
Phille
Even more interesting. In England - at least in London - the situation is completely the reverse. At least at the level that I play. John playing a few notches above me might find things different.
Here league games will typically be adjourned or adjudicated after 36 moves or perhaps one or two more. In contrast to John, my objection to adjournments as methods of gaining endgame experience is more that they don't happen rather than because they do. Again this will be more to do with my specific situation (i.e. mostly playing in the London League) where an adjournment session doesn't mean travelling to some far flung place.
The trouble for me is that people (myself included) resign losing games too early because it's not worth coming back another night. So you don't get the experience of actually having to win winning positions.
Rapidplay finishes might help somewhat but I find a three hour session with no increments too short really. Hampstead is an hour for all moves with a 30 second increment from move 1. So a 60 move game should take about three hours, but if you need to play out a long technical ending you won't run out of time.
Anyhoo, a bit more on this on Monday.
PS: I see auto-correct changed my "chessers" into "Chasers" in my second to last post. Very annoying how often it does that.
In my league we have what I consider the optimal time control: 100min/40 + 50min/20 and 30sec increment from the very beginning.
Lower leagues might play faster, because for some reason they often don't play on weekends, but time controls under 90/40 + 30/rest are only used in children's games.
Probably in Germany there is some restriction on which games are eligible to be rated, like in the Elo-rating. To venture a guess, it's probably the exact same requirement.
Otherwise shorter time controls would be surely be used esp. on workdays. This monday I played a team cup game which lasted 'til after midnight.
Too late ... but at least I got some endgame practice. ;-)
Phille
That sounds more like our 4NCL - which I almost never play (one game every few years).
OUr league chess is always played on weeknight evenings so of necessity playing sessions have to be short. 3 hours or even 2 hours 40 minutes is the norm down our way.
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