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| Feb-24-11 | | Everett: <perfidious> <M.D.Wilson> <TheFocus> Your points are well taken. Thanks for adding to the discussion. I for one look forward to the day when I can simply enjoy the games and stop ranking players in various categories. <M.D.Wilson> No Smyslov? What do you think of Anand's play in this area? <Everyone> I've been through some games of Alexey Dreev; though not in the top echelon of players nowadays his endgame is one of the best around. |
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| Feb-24-11 | | TheFocus: <Everett> <TheFocus> <Maybe you should see if much of his stellar endgame technique came after extensive and accurate analysis of adjourned positions. This was a particular strength of his.> Truthfully, it would be hard to disagree with this statement. I would say that his great endgame prowess helped him in his analysis of adjourned positions; but on the other hand, the analysis of these positions greatly INCREASED his ability to play for and into those positions, and to do well once he got into them. Bravo! |
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| Feb-24-11 | | M.D. Wilson: Smyslov should be on any list! He was certainly one of the best. Not sure about Anand, his style is more along the lines of Spassky and Tal, although he's a great technician. I'd rank Kramnik above Anand in the endgame, but only just. |
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| Feb-24-11 | | TheFocus: <M.D. Wilson> I think that Silman was right when he put Smyslov in the top 5 ever of endgame specialists. You can gain some valuable rating points by a careful study of Smyslov's games and definitely increase that endgame knowledge. |
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| Feb-25-11 | | M.D. Wilson: Smyslov's game flows like water and his games are very easy to learn from, unlike, say, Botvinnik and Petrosian. My list of best endgames players, in no particular order, would be: Rubinstein, Lasker, Capablanca, Smyslov, Korchnoi, Fischer, Karpov, Kramnik. There's no way that I could give the best five, as all of these players were so evenly matched, but it's fun to compare! |
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| Feb-25-11 | | bubuli55: perhaps 37...Nf5.
37...Nh5 made that a-pawn a giant
not a good idea Black left himself outnumbered on the Qside when W's only win is thru that a-pawn |
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| Mar-01-11 | | M.D. Wilson: Anyway, how is Mecking these days? |
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| Nov-16-11 | | Robeson: "Maybe you should see if much of [Botvinnik's] stellar endgame technique came after extensive and accurate analysis of adjourned positions. This was a particular strength of his." I see. So you're saying the "top" endgame players you mentioned didn't bother to analyze their adjourned games? Someone's wrong here, I think. |
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| Nov-16-11 | | Robeson: "The best endgame players from 1950-1995-ish were Korchnoi, Fischer and Karpov." This would come as an extraordinary surprise to Smyslov, who was certainly a stronger and more natural endgame player than Korchnoi. I think the GMs who played with Petrosian would also question why he isn't among this group. |
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| Nov-16-11 | | King Death: <Robeson> I remember Joel Benjamin commenting on Korchnoi's exceptional prowess in the endings in an interview a long time ago. He would be one to know. Smyslov belongs in this group without a doubt. The problem is that there's always going to be someone left out when these lists come up. Petrosian's skills were undoubted too for anyone who's studied his games. |
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| Nov-16-11 | | AnalyzeThis: You need to have killer instinct and the skills and technique to back it up. |
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| Jan-05-12 | | M.D. Wilson: Note my correction on Feb-24-11 re Smyslov, Robeson. Petrosian was a great endgame player of course, but so was Spassky. |
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Mar-14-15
 | | offramp: There is an appropriate phrase Russian players used to use: <"Western players are Grandmasters in the openings, Masters in the middle game and beginners in the ending."> |
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| Sep-10-16 | | cehertan: Without the benefit of computer checking I think 37...Nf5 was inferior due to Nb7-xa5 with back rank mate hanging. |
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Dec-20-17
| | offramp: 
click for larger view
21...Ne5
22. a3 Nc6!
Original!
*****
Some time later on another part of the board...
click for larger view
Black's bishop on b6 is attacked.
27...Ba5! People like me might think that the White king is "in a mating net" created by the bishops on b6 and h3. Of course that is a load of hooey. Mecking doesn't try to create an attack out of thin air, he carries on making positional gains.
*****
click for larger view
Mecking played 36...Nxg3. There was probably time-trouble around this point.
He could have played 36...Rxd3 37. Rxe4 Rxa3, but with all the pawns on the same side that looks drawn.
After 36..Nxg3 Korchnoi could have played the desperado 37. Ne5!=
*****
Mecking's adjournment analysis seems to have been faulty. He goes downhill quickly.
click for larger view
51. Rd4! the only move to win.
Superb game. |
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| Oct-02-24 | | stone free or die: Byrne analyzed this game here
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/19/... with several interesting comments about pawn sacrifices, both accepted and declined. E.g. after 12...Qe7! (Byrnes annotation): <Mecking found an ingenious way to complete his development with the pawn sacrifice 12 ... Q‐K2!, but Korchnoi, who has always exhibited a greater yen for pawns than anyone, for once felt constrained to decline.> So Korchnoi didn't always take the pawn.
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Oct-02-24
 | | perfidious: <zed....So Korchnoi didn't always take the pawn.> Above all, Korchnoi played concretely to a fault, as will be seen herein: <<....Analytic power and positional insight vary very much for different Grandmasters. Smyslov and Petrosian never liked to analyze complex positions very much, Tal obviously does it very well and Korchnoi's whole play is based on analysis. If you are Smyslov or Petrosian then you have such positional understanding that you can avoid many complications and dangers and the need for so much analysis. Analytical power improves very much with practice; you learn to find what is critical in a position, what is worth analysing - you see which pieces are active, where the weak points are. When you don't know what to analyse, you sit there for a long time, picking variations almost at random. Tal and Korchnoi were probably born with a greater gift for analysis than I was and I was born with a greater gift than Smyslov and Petrosian; and in positional insight it is the other way round. Korchnoi is fantastic at calculating complex variations, especially when he is hard pressed; but he must analyze because his judgment when he doesn't calculate is very bad - he has to get through a lot of variations before he knows what's happening. Of course many things that worry the ordinary player are not problems at all for a Grandmaster; but in the difficult positions Spassky has said "Korchnoi is always wrong". Maybe a strong point of Fischer is that he is good both at analysis and in judgment - though Tal can calculate better and possibly Korchnoi also.'>Alexander, <A Book of Chess>, p 88> |
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| Oct-02-24 | | stone free or die: <perf> - I'll have to look at that book, and the various points, later, when I have more time. But I had an immediate reaction to "... and Petrosian never liked to analyze complex positions very much". There's a subjective component here, i.e. "liked", of course, but compare this assertion to Fischer's quote here: <Fischer once said: 'Petrosian has the ability to see and eliminate danger 20 moves before it arises!’> https://www.chess.com/blog/swapches... Somewhat of a different impression methinks.
(Now, I wonder if Fischer really did make that quote - where and when?) |
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| Oct-02-24 | | stone free or die: Here the Fischer quote is elaborated even a bit more... <"[Petrosian] has an incredible tactical view, and a wonderful sense of the danger... No matter how much you think deep... He will 'smell' any kind of danger 20 moves before"> https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comm... |
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Oct-02-24
| | perfidious: <zed>, in <MSMG>, Fischer noted Petrosian's gift while annotating one of their battles, though in a different way; have not seen the book in thirty years or more, but have a vague impression of his remark running something to the effect that 'Petrosian ends such dreams before they enter his opponent's head!' |
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| Oct-03-24 | | stone free or die: <perf> my opinion is that you have to have great analytic prowess (and tactical vision) to play positional chess properly. |
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Oct-03-24
| | perfidious: It is no accident that in the mid 1960s, Tal and Petrosian (!) were regarded as the strongest blitz players in the world. |
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| Oct-04-24 | | FM David H. Levin: <<stone free or die>: <perf> my opinion is that you have to have great analytic prowess (and tactical vision) to play positional chess properly.> Perhaps the most difficult aspect of this prowess for a player to develop is being able to envision a potential position or situation that would be far too many moves away to reach by move-by-move calculation. |
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| Oct-05-24 | | Granny O Doul: < Smyslov and Petrosian never liked to analyze complex positions very much, Tal obviously does it very well and Korchnoi's whole play is based on analysis. If you are Smyslov or Petrosian then you have such positional understanding that you can avoid many complications and dangers and the need for so much analysis>--Just pointing out that these are Bent Larsen's observations. |
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Oct-05-24
| | perfidious: As I have always pointed out when citing this passage from the interview he granted Hugh Alexander in past posts. |
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