Endgame Adventures In Team League 4545 : Where we ended in T47

Partly, I wrote this post to offset against this one on T47 openings ( I wouldn't want to be classified as an openings freak :)  and to continue my exploration of T47, but also because I was interested in just what sort of endings are played in TL games ( especially compared to 'professionals') and maybe just a bit on trying to identify what endings I should concentrate on, to shortcut trying to work on them all.

Presentation was an issue, since, although endgames are classified, they aren't as straightforward as openings ( ie not recorded in the game notation ), but I used a 'standard' classifier in my database, so at least I present some sort of consistency.

Straight into things.



Below is a table of endings, showing type, games occurring and percentages, with an additional column given for the 2010 Gibraltar Tournament ( 8th GibTelCom Masters ) to compare with TL games ( it was a relatively random choice ).

It should be noted that one game can fall into many categories, since what begins, for example, as a Rook ending, may, via exchanges, switch to a pawn only ending. It's not, therefore, that one game has only one possible ending. Confusing possibly, but I think its correct

Type	Description	Games	T47 %	GibTelCom2010%
I	Pawn Endings	294	22	10
II	Rook Endings	374	28	45
III	Bishop Endings	162	12	11
IV	Knight Endings	127	9.5	9
V	Bishop vs Knight Endings	124	9	11
VI	Rook vs Bishop Endings	68	5	5
VII	Rook vs Knight Endings	29	2	2
VIII	Queen vs Pawn Endings	46	3.5	2
IX	Queen vs Queen Endings	47	3.4	2
X	Queen vs Rook Endings	19	1.5	< 1
XI	Queen vs Knight Endings	10	1	< 1
XII	Queen vs Bishop Endings	8	1	< 1

Immediately, two things are noteworthy to me.

One is that Rook Endings are the most likely to arise in both TL and Professional play : they are the highest percentage. The second is that in TL play, Pawn endings are almost as likely to occur as Rook endings ( 28% for Rooks and 22% for Pawns), something that is definitely not true for Professionals, where 45% of endings are Rook-based.

My guess would be that Professionals actually know their Rook endings, so that they resolve the game in that phase and don't need to exchange down to pawn-only endings. This probably applies to other endings too, and must be a major point differentiating the two camps.

How about looking at a few "truisms"...

Are opposite bishop endings drawn  ? Well, in T47 the statistics aren't conclusive, but imply that it could be true-ish ! 22 games of this type and 10 are drawn.

Here's one that is definitely the case...

52. Kb3

 After 52 moves, there isn't much movement left.

But here..

54....g5

I think I would play on. After 55. Kxg5 Kxg7, I think there are some possibilities for the Black King to make the cross-board journey and support his pawns, especially if White gives in to the temptation of the King-side Black pawns, and lets face it, we amateurs are often pawn-greedy !

Are Queen and pawns vs Queen and pawns a draw ? It seems to be true. In T47, 16 of those, and 8 are drawn, including this one, proof that just because the most powerful pieces are left doesn't mean that a result is guaranteed.

41. Qe4...Draw agreed

In all sorts of endings, there are lots of examples of agreed draws that should be wins, but I think a lot of these are down to time issues. A relatively short time frame of 45/45 means that what could be the most interesting, thought-provoking, and indeed most "able-to-be-worked-out" part of the game, is reduced to a scramble, and in such occasions draws in won positions are often agreed or actually are the result of not working out the correct move to play in the 10 seconds available, and making the drawing, rather than winning move : its understandable !

Success in endgames other than the obvious and/or basic, is an area where the better prepared and practised player will benefit, much more so than openings, where mistakes are often recoverable. This is as true in Master play as in amateur.

But, since we (amateurs) don't know our endings in detail, we don't know how to win particular ones, but we do know how to win the basic one, namely King and pawns, hence we exchange to the minimum possible, and fight it out there.

In endgames, you can never get away from specifics, so finally, as a "bad" example of the supposed “rule” of simplifying when ahead to win, what happened here....?

White played b5, and immediately transformed a likely win,to a draw, apparently forgetting his basic K + P endgame theory, since after Qxc5, Kxc5, Kc7, the Black king is in front of the white pawn and will prevent it queening !

I started out by suggesting that I wanted to try to identify the most common endings and see if I could short cut a way to prepare for them.

This isn't possible : there is not a short cut.

Certainly, I have identified that knowing Rook endings could provide benefits [ see this as a starter ] and if you know your pawn endings as well, together these cover 50% of T47 endings.

However, really it goes to show that in chess, be it professional or amateur, there are few short cuts : experience, practice and hard work are the only ways to be prepared and improve.

Time to break out the endgame books !