Who was the greatest endgame player?
Bruce Draney
Has there ever been any consensus on which of the World Champions may
have been the best at endgame play? We have all heard that Tal was
known for his wild attacking play, while Petrosian was well known for
his defensive skills. Obviously Fischer was fantastic at
combinations, but which of the World Champions really outshone the
others in the endings?
Best Regards,
Bruce
Randy Bauer
Bruce Draney <bdr...@esu3.esu3.k12.ne.us> wrote in article
<3425F3...@esu3.esu3.k12.ne.us>...
My opinion is that Capablanca was considered the world champion who was
best at endgame play. Chernev wrote a nice book on Capablanca's best
endings, and there are some great performances there.
Opinions will vary, however. Smyslov literally "wrote the book" on rook
and pawn endings, Fischer was amazingly good at some technical endgames,
such as rook and bishop versus rook and knight (and bishop versus knight),
and Botvinnik also had a style that often shone in the ending. I think
Capa was the most well-rounded of the bunch, however.
Randy Bauer
Ron Moskovitz
This is one of those questions which is hard to answer because time
plays a factor. Capablanca was head and shoulders above any other
endgame player of his time--but every GM since has studied his
endgame play and learned from it, so it's hard to say how he would
stack up against today's players if one of them, stepped, fully
prepped, into a time machine.
Fischer has to be a candidate. His success with the exchange Ruy
was in large part because of his excellent endgame technique--
he could squeeze the tiniest advantage home to victory (even if
it was sometimes just by sheer attrition--keep the pressure up and
sooner or later they'll crack).
My vote would probably go to Capa, but for a reason that some people
may disagree with. So many of Fischer's great endings are mazes I
couldn't make heads or tales of--I have no idea if they're won or drawn
or lost. But lots of Capablanca victories come from positions that
I would swear were dead drawn. It's not just that I wouldn't
know how to drive home the win, but that I wouldn't even think
tthat there's a win to drive home.
There was one game in Reinfeld's book on his endings where I had to stop,
and flip ahead to the end of the game because I couldn't see any way
that the game was anything other than dead drawn. Yet---it wasn't.
I actually laughed out loud when it finally became apparant to me that
the game was won--it seemed more impossible than any combination
from Capablanca's great rival, Alekhine.
-Ron
Geoffrey E. Caveney
There was a wonderfully cryptic comment about who the greatest endgame
players were, made by Nimzovich in the 1920s. In annotating one of
Tartakower's fine endgame wins, Nimzovich said something like, "Tartakower
is, in my opinion, the third greatest endgame artist among living
masters." This comment is mentioned somewhere in both Tartakower's Best
Games of Chess collection (self-annotated) and Chernev's Chess Companion
(the book with one half chess stories and one half games).
The great riddle is, who did Nimzovich have in mind as #1 and #2? I
would certainly assume Capablanca, but the other is not obvious. Lasker?
Rubinstein? Alekhine? Maroczy? Nimzovich himself?
Well, at least he didn't say he had discovered a remarkable proof of his
assertion which the margin was too small to contain. :-)
Jeff
Ari Makela
In article <3425F3...@esu3.esu3.k12.ne.us>,
Bruce Draney <bdr...@esu3.esu3.k12.ne.us> wrote:
>Has there ever been any consensus on which of the World Champions may
>have been the best at endgame play? We have all heard that Tal was
>known for his wild attacking play, while Petrosian was well known for
>his defensive skills. Obviously Fischer was fantastic at
>combinations, but which of the World Champions really outshone the
>others in the endings?
I don't think anyone can be said to be the best. Every champion has been
a great endgame player. That's simply essential. I think that champions
who have been noted for their endgame skills are: Lasker, Capablanca,
Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian and Karpov.
Alekhine, Tal and Kasparov are best known for their scintillating
attacking play. Euwe, Spassky and Fischer are more all around players.
If I'd really have to pick one of them I'd say Vasily Smyslov.
--
Ari Makela http://www.iki.fi/hauva/
ha...@iki.fi
You live and learn. At any rate, you live. You also panic. - Douglas Adams
mig
On Mon, 22 Sep 1997 18:32:28 GMT, rm...@netcom.com (Ron Moskovitz)
wrote:
> This is one of those questions which is hard to answer because time
>plays a factor. Capablanca was head and shoulders above any other
>endgame player of his time--but every GM since has studied his
>endgame play and learned from it, so it's hard to say how he would
>stack up against today's players if one of them, stepped, fully
>prepped, into a time machine.
As far as choosing the games of certain players to study, Ron's good
point is crucial. The accumulated knowledge and intense study regimens
of today's professionals gives them an edge against all but the very
best players of the past. Capablanca deserves lots of credit for
playing so well in the ending at a time when many of the positions
reached were new and unstudied by both players. He wasn't called "The
Natural" for nothing, though I'm sure he studied more than he let on.
A book of endings by Salov or Karpov would perhaps contain games of
higher start-to-finish quality, especially as far as the competition
was concerned. I remember watching Salov out-Karpov Karpov in one of
their games here in Buenos Aires a few years ago, a virtuoso
performance. And Alexander Khalifman still wakes up at nights
screaming after nightmares about having to play an ending against
Salov. Their candidates match was more like Salov's Endgame Course.
Of course, as Capablanca was so far ahead of most of his
contemporaries their defenses were usually not the best. You see many
games in which his opponents play terrible endgame blunders that don't
receive the criticism they deserve. Even some of the top players of
that period played rather poorly in the endgame. I remember seeing
some games by Spielmann, Vidmar, and Tarrasch with some
mind-bogglingly bad play. I know everyone has bad days, but you
wouldn't see that kind of lack of technique among today's top 20.
(Though Kasparov and Karpov exchanging endgame blunders and Garry
missing a win in their first game in Las Palmas last year was hardly
inspiring. Yuck.)
saludos, Mig
--- "Thees ees CRRRUSH!!" - The ever-eloquent
Lev Polugaevsky, analyzing in the press room
during the 1995 Buenos Aires Sicilian Thematic
Tournament held in his honor. --
-----
REMOVE SBLOCK TO MAIL ME
Frank Dudley Berry, Jr.
Geoffrey E. Caveney wrote:
>
> There was a wonderfully cryptic comment about who the greatest endgame
> players were, made by Nimzovich in the 1920s. In annotating one of
> Tartakower's fine endgame wins, Nimzovich said something like, "Tartakower
> is, in my opinion, the third greatest endgame artist among living
> masters." This comment is mentioned somewhere in both Tartakower's Best
> Games of Chess collection (self-annotated) and Chernev's Chess Companion
> (the book with one half chess stories and one half games).
> The great riddle is, who did Nimzovich have in mind as #1 and #2? I
> would certainly assume Capablanca, but the other is not obvious.
Almost certainly Capablnca and Rubinstein.
--
------------------------------
Frank Dudley Berry, Jr.
fd...@pacbell.net
(408) 299-8424
In this scherherzerade of a thousand and one night's nightinesses, that
sword of
certitude which would identifide the individuone. . . . . . never falls.
------------------------------
Flemming Storgaard
> Has there ever been any consensus on which of the World Champions may
> have been the best at endgame play? We have all heard that Tal was
> known for his wild attacking play, while Petrosian was well known for
> his defensive skills. Obviously Fischer was fantastic at
> combinations, but which of the World Champions really outshone the
> others in the endings?
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Bruce
I think that the best endgame player was Bent Larsen
Nobody in his best years could play endcames like him. :-)
all the best
Flemming
Charles Blair
For what it's worth, in LAST LECTURES Capablanca pays tribute to
Lasker as the greatest endgame player he knew.
J...@suffolk.lib
On 24 Sep 1997 00:40:39 GMT, c-b...@staff.uiuc.edu (Charles Blair)
wrote:
> For what it's worth, in LAST LECTURES Capablanca pays tribute to
>Lasker as the greatest endgame player he knew.
Okay - I may be taking this thread away from it's intended
topic, but I think you may enjoy the following anecdote about Capa,
taken from _The Compleat Practical Joker_, by H. Allen Smith
(Doubleday, 1953).
Smith includes an entire chapter about the tireless practical
joker Charlie McArthur, who was married to the famous actress Helen
Hayes. The following excerpt is as accurate as my typing allows:
During one of the periods in which he was living in Hollywood,
Mr. McArthur spent many afternoons at the West Side Tennis Club. He
has, for a long time, fancied himself as a pretty expert chess player
and he went to the club to play chess. Sometimes he would get his
friends to bring in an unsuspecting victim, telling him that the great
Jose Capablanca was visiting the club. Mr. McArthur would assume what
he thought to be an excellent Spanish accent whenever he was
introduced to a victim, and then he'd agree to a game of chess. Mr.
McArthur was good, all right, and usually defeated these fellow
amateurs, enjoying himself throughout the games by using the Spanish
accent.
One afternoon the McArthur cronies arrived with a fresh
sucker, a Mr. Coatesworth. Mr. McArthur was introduced as the great
Capablanca. "We play a game or two, eh?" he suggested. The newcomer
agreed. Gladly. For, of course, he was the real Jose Capablanca. He
had Mr. McArthur against the wall within six moves. And he
exasperated Mr. McArthur still further by making each move quickly,
apparently without giving more than a moment's study to it, then
dashing out to the pool for a plunge, leaving the phony Capablanca
puzzled and fuming. When, at last, Mr. McArthur had decided on his
move, his opponent would return from the pool, casually and quickly
make his own move, and dash off again.
When it was all over, and truth stood revealed, Mr. McArthur
said he knew all along that he was playing the real Capablanca.
That's what he said.
Maybe not the funniest ending, but I think this old story
gives some insight into Capa's character. And BTW I'd say Capa was an
endgame genius because he took the endgame far beyond where anyone
else had at the time. Today's GMs "stand on the shoulders of giants"
such as Capa, in that they have the his and others' analysis to study.
If Capa were alive today, I'd wager that he'd still be innovating.
Perhaps his advancements would not be so impressive as they were in
his actual time, owing to computers and more grandmaster research, but
I'd still give my nod to Jose Raoul Capablanca as the "greatest
endgame player of all time". Just my 2 cents.
Jon
Randy Bauer
Flemming Storgaard <Stor...@post3.tele.dk> wrote in article
<01bcc86b$d93f6e40$b283efc2@ypiahpzo>...
There have been many great endgame players who did not become world
champion -- Rubinstein and Salo Flohr come to mind.
Randy Bauer
David Hanley
Frank Dudley Berry, Jr. wrote:
> Geoffrey E. Caveney wrote:
> >
> > There was a wonderfully cryptic comment about who the greatest
> endgame
> > players were, made by Nimzovich in the 1920s. In annotating one of
> > Tartakower's fine endgame wins, Nimzovich said something like,
> "Tartakower
> > is, in my opinion, the third greatest endgame artist among living
> > masters." This comment is mentioned somewhere in both Tartakower's
> Best
> > Games of Chess collection (self-annotated) and Chernev's Chess
> Companion
> > (the book with one half chess stories and one half games).
> > The great riddle is, who did Nimzovich have in mind as #1 and #2?
> I
> > would certainly assume Capablanca, but the other is not obvious.
>
> Almost certainly Capablnca and Rubinstein.
I think nimzovich was a all-time great endgame player.His only major
weakness was his fondness for the bizarre. Often
he passed up simple advantages in favor of obscure complicated
lines. He may have been thinkin of himself as second.
dave
Benjamin J. Tilly
In article <01bcc86b$d93f6e40$b283efc2@ypiahpzo>
"Flemming Storgaard" <Stor...@post3.tele.dk> writes:
> I think that the best endgame player was Bent Larsen
> Nobody in his best years could play endcames like him. :-)
The second statement does not, of course, imply the first...
For instance I confidently assert that nobody plays endgames like I do.
The sheer novelty of my mistakes at times leaves novices puzzled and
experienced players shocked! :-)
Cheers,
Ben Tilly
jlu...@hoflink.com
On Sun, 21 Sep 1997, Bruce Draney wrote:
.
> Has there ever been any consensus on which of the World Champions may
> have been the best at endgame play? We have all heard that Tal was
> known for his wild attacking play, while Petrosian was well known for
> his defensive skills. Obviously Fischer was fantastic at
> combinations, but which of the World Champions really outshone the
> others in the endings?
.
Looking at the replies in this thread, I see that many of the respondents
are unaware of the criticisms of Capablanca's endgame play. Comments by
Fischer and Alekhine indicate that Capablanca's skill in the ending was
overrated. Of course, Alekhine probably had bad personal relations with
Capablanca when he made his comments. Fischer, however, was an admirer of
Capablanca and was trying to make an objective evaluation.
.
Fischer thought that Capablanca's real strength was the middlegame, so
that "the game was decided ... before he arrived at the ending...."
Fischer also cited Capablanca-Menchik, Hastings 1929, as an example of
atrocious play by Capablanca in a R&P ending. I was unable to find this
ending commented on in the standard endgame works, but I did find the
moves and brief notes in a game collection. You can judge for yourself.
There is no indication of whether the players were in time pressure:
.
Capablanca-Menchik (W: Kf6, Re3, Pf4. B: Kh7, Rb4) 52 f5 Rb8 53 Kf7 Rb7+
54 Re7 Rb6 55 f6 Ra6? 56 Rd7? Ra8 57 Re7 Ra6? 58 Kf8+ Kg6 59 f7 Ra8+ 60
Re8 Ra7 61 Re6+ Kh7 62 Ke8? Ra8+ 63 Ke7 Ra7+? 64 Kf6 1-0
.
The game see-sawed between a win & a draw.
.
To go back to your original question, I was able to find the rankings of
an eminent endgame authority, Pal Benko. Benko's list of "the nine
greatest endgame players" appeared in Andy Soltis's "Book of Chess Lists."
.
Here is Benko's list (compiled, per Soltis, in no particular order):
.
Akiba Rubinstein ("Especially his play in rook endgames." - Benko)
Vassily Smyslov
Mikhail Botvinnik
Geza Maroczy ("In particular, his queen endgames.")
Sammy Reshevsky
Emanuel Lasker
Richard Reti ("Especially for his compositions.")
Reuben Fine and Yuri Averbakh ("For their research in the endgame.")
.
At the end of this list, Soltis quite appropriately adds Pal Benko.
.
[posted & mailed]
.
Jason Luchan
Ilias Kastanas
In article <Pine.BSI.3.96.97092...@hoflink.com>,
See-saw it did!
55... Ra6? loses to 56. Kf8+, Kg6 57. f7, Kf6 57. Kg8 But
not to 56. Rd7?, Ra8 stopping the above and drawing.
However, instead of 57... Rb8, she gave him another chance with
57... Ra6? Capablanca grabbed it.
And then he threw it away again. 62. Re1! wins by Rh1+... Kg8...
while 62. Ke8? allows an easy draw after 63... Kg7.
Black did not play it, though; she played 63... Ra7+??, just
about _forcing_ White to win! 64... Ra8 65. Re8 is obvious enough.
Five swings, through five increasingly gross blunders... It's
a safe bet both were in serious time pressure.
Ilias
Ari Makela
>Looking at the replies in this thread, I see that many of the respondents
>are unaware of the criticisms of Capablanca's endgame play. Comments by
>Fischer and Alekhine indicate that Capablanca's skill in the ending was
>overrated. Of course, Alekhine probably had bad personal relations with
>Capablanca when he made his comments. Fischer, however, was an admirer of
>Capablanca and was trying to make an objective evaluation.
Alekhine and Capablanca were initially friends but world championship
transformed friendship into hatred.
Fischer, IMO, makes here a mistake. He's a modern grandmaster and has the
accumulated knowledge of all the previous players. Fischer put down Alekhine's
contributions on opening theory, too.
>Fischer also cited Capablanca-Menchik, Hastings 1929, as an example of
>atrocious play by Capablanca in a R&P ending. I was unable to find this
Everybody plays horrible games. Fischer played ...Bxh2?? against Spassky.
Not really a move by a player of his caliber.
>There is no indication of whether the players were in time pressure:
There often isn't though time pressure were there.
> Akiba Rubinstein ("Especially his play in rook endgames." - Benko)
This is, BTW, what Alekhine thought, too. If my memory serves me right.
> Richard Reti ("Especially for his compositions.")
Well, his composition where the White king is on h8 and he has to draw
is a real beauty. A piece of art.
J...@suffolk.lib
On 28 Sep 1997 10:26:09 +0300, a...@satumaa.l16.fi (Ari Makela) wrote:
>>Fischer also cited Capablanca-Menchik, Hastings 1929, as an example of
>>atrocious play by Capablanca in a R&P ending. I was unable to find this
White: Capablanca,Jose
Black: Menchik,Vera
Place: Hastings Year: 1929
1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.Nc3 d5 4.cd5 Nd5 5.g3 Nc6 6.Bg2 e6
7.O-O Be7 8.d4 O-O 9.Nd5 Qd5 10.Be3 Qh5 11.dc5 e5 12.Nd2 f5
13.f4 e4 14.Qb3 Kh8 15.Rfe1 Nd8 16.Qc2 Be6 17.b4 Nc6 18.a3
Bf6 19.Rad1 Qf7 20.Rc1 b5 21.cb6 Nd4 22.Bd4 Bd4 23.e3 Bb6
24.Nc4 Bc4 25.Qc4 Qc4 26.Rc4 Rac8 27.Bf1 g6 28.Kf2 Rc4
29.Bc4 Rc8 30.Rc1 a5 31.Ke2 ab4 32.ab4 Kg7 33.h3 Ra8 34.Bb3
Ra3 35.Rc3 h5 36.g4 hg4 37.hg4 fg4 38.Kf2 Kh6 39.Kg3 Bd8
40.Kg4 Bf6 41.Rc6 Rb3 42.Rf6 Kg7 43.Kg5 Re3 44.Rg6 Kf7
45.Rf6 Kg7 46.Rb6 Re1 47.Rb7 Kg8 48.Kf6 e3 49.Rb8 Kh7
50.Re8 Rb1 51.Re3 Rb4 52.f5 Rb8 53.Kf7 Rb7 54.Re7 Rb6 55.f6
Ra6 56.Rd7 Ra8 57.Re7 Ra6 58.Kf8 Kg6 59.f7 Ra8 60.Re8 Ra7
61.Re6 Kh7 62.Ke8 Ra8 63.Ke7 Ra7 64.Kf6
1-0
Yup - Capa made a couple of errors here (at least that I can see) -
36. g4 should have been punished, and 58. Kf8 is strange. I also like
34. Rc3 and 50. f5, but I'm no GM, so who knows?
So what does all this prove - only that Capa was indeed human.
Jon
jlu...@hoflink.com
On 28 Sep 1997, Ari Makela wrote:
.
> In article <Pine.BSI.3.96.97092...@hoflink.com>,
> <jlu...@hoflink.com> wrote:
>
> >Fischer also cited Capablanca-Menchik, Hastings 1929, as an example of
> >atrocious play by Capablanca in a R&P ending. I was unable to find this
>
> Everybody plays horrible games. Fischer played ...Bxh2?? against Spassky.
> Not really a move by a player of his caliber.
.
Of course this is true. But in trying to choose "the greatest endgame
players," we should not only consider the best endgames, but also the
worst. What is most interesting about Capablanca-Menchik is that Capa's
mistakes came in a fairly elementary rook & pawn ending. I don't know of
any "excuse" for his bad play. Some Capablanca biographies claim that he
studied 1,000 rook and pawn endings to increase his skill in the endgame.
Fischer doubted the truth of that story.
Charles Blair
<jlu...@hoflink.com> writes:
> Some Capablanca biographies claim that he
>studied 1,000 rook and pawn endings to increase his skill in the endgame.
My guess is that Capablanca studied a collection of problems,
A THOUSAND ENDINGS, edited by Tattersall, published in 1910 and 1911.
In MY CHESS CAREER, Capablanca says he studied a book of endings
around the time of his match with J. Corzo (1899--- Capablanca was
ten or eleven years old).