Saturday, October 30, 2010

Endgame Studies

Endgames studies are different than chess problems. Both are composed, but while problems are short and end in mate, studies are many moves in length and may end at an exact ending or preponderance of material rather than a checkmate.

Endgames studies can be useful for endgame learning, while chess problems are usually not directly useful for tactical training (though they can help with visualization). Though mostly they are just beautiful.

Youtube has a lot of endgame study videos, user EndgameStudies posted 5 nice ones in 2009. The third one, has white with 3 minor pieces against the black queen. This was similar to the material at the end of Shirov vs Carlsen which had lots of asymmetric exchanges and went for 174 moves, before Carlsen gave up and accepted a draw. Carlsen's problem was that he could not escape the white queen's checks and get two pieces attacking one of Shirov's pawns.

Of course youtube has some that may not be so good, also.

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