| A patzer's approach to the evaluation of endgame positions |
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| Written by Sciurus | |
| Friday, 24 August 2007 | |
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White is a pawn ahead and simply asking the computer to evaluate the situation gives quite a simplistic answer, too - I tried several chess engines like Shredder and Crafty and they all evaluated the position more or less as +1 - White is rougly a pawn ahead. Of course, I can count the few pawns on the board myself, so this "answer" does not get me any further. The simple apprach of battling it out didn't give me an answer either. I won the game, but only because Black forfeited on time about 20 moves later. May be he died of boredom? I may never find out. A win by forfeit never feels quite right to me and I really wanted to know if White can win here. Therefore, I plugged the position in the computer and tried a few times to convert the one pawn advantage in a win - not surprisingly, the silicon chunk in my notebook won every single time because I am simply unable to play more than a dozen or so moves without blundering. After spending hours on this I was still not sure how to evaluate this position! After banging my head against this problem for too long it finally occurred to me that I have 24/7 access to several 'grandmasters' - a collection of computer chess engines! I started a match between two chess engines with the starting position above. To make sure the answer is not influenced by the limited computing power of my notebook, I gave them 60min "thinking" time to finish the game. After waiting two hours, the answer to my problem was rather boring, because White, played by Shredder, was not able to convert the material advantage into a win. Therefore, I now I dare to assume that the position is dead drawn. However, does this mean that human grandmasters would also agree to draw here? I don't know, but this kind of analysis is the best I can come up with for now, unless I hire a chess coach who may be able to explain the position to me in plain English. Comments (15)
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written by Sciurus, August 27, 2007
Yes, there's a lot to learn. Aside from Pandolfini's Endgame Course, I have only Fine's "Basic Chess Endings" which I found in a used book store. It might be a good source to look things up which is perfectly fine during
 correspondence chess games but up to now it is just way over my head. Of course the whole idea of looking things up requires learning the basics first... ...
written by likesforests, August 27, 2007
Pandolfini is a great first endgame book... I've read it at least a half-dozen times! Fine is more a reference encyclopedia than a learning textbook, as you've discovered.
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written by likesforests, August 27, 2007
The positions you should know inside out are in chapters 5-9 (pawns), chapter 14 (rooks), and chapter 10 (queen/rook vs pawn). The rest is not as important.
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written by Robert, August 28, 2007
I'll throw in my two cents, which is that the important question is not whether the position is a theoretical win, but the right way to play for a win--I'll admit that I've even lost "pawn-ahead" positions like this a couple of times, refusing to accept a draw when there were no more realistic chances and making moves with a logic like "Well, this move draws so I'll have to find a different one..." You can imagine how that can turn out!
In an OTB game between equals with say 30 minutes a side for the rest of the game I'd give White about a 50-50 chance to win. Just try to restrict Black's pieces and wait for an inaccuracy--easier said than done, it's true. But the main thing is not to allow counterplay and not to give yourself any losing chances by trying too hard. And if he draws, good for him! Hard experience speaking... ...
written by Robert, August 28, 2007 However, the way you play for a draw seems to me quite often very different from playing for a win, not to mention the psychological dangers you mentioned. That's an excellent point--if you're just trying to draw a position where you know you're worse then it's just focusing on one thing. But trying to win and not allowing any losing chances is much trickier...it took me years to accept that some nice looking positions can't be won, but can be lost if forced badly enough! ...
written by Armand Rousso, August 29, 2007
It is wonderful. The end of game techniques is marvelous. I have read Pandolfini's Endgame Course at least thrice.
Armand Rousso http://chess.armandrousso.biz/ ...
written by Polly, August 30, 2007
I can relate to Robert's comments about losing endings where I was up a pawn. It's easy to fall into the mentality of "I'm up a pawn, I'll trade down and win with the extra pawn." Often in my quest to convert the position I either get into insane time trouble and implode with seconds left on my clock, or I under estimate my opponent's pieces and do something stupid like fall into a
skewer or fork.  In this position I don't really see a way for white to take advantage of the isolated c pawn. However if black offered me a draw at this point I would most likely decline and at least try for the win. ... written by Polly, September 01, 2007
Thanks! It's coming along slowly. I finally got a game up on one of my older articles. If I spent as much time working on my chess as I did getting the stupid thing to work right, maybe I wouldn't be such a putz.
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| Last Updated ( Friday, 24 August 2007 ) |
This position is from one of my recent games at 
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Play chess in style - 
Practically, it's going to be a good fight!
Rook &
I would love to learn these, but I still have to master rook endings and minor piece endings before I'm ready to tackle these.