The Practical Endgame / Instruction Dirty Rotten Trades
When faced with a trade, don’t make a gut decision. By GM DANIEL NARODITSKY
IN A SENSE, TRADING A PIECE IS ANALO - gous to making a large investment in a startup firm. In each case, three distinct scenarios are possible:
Scenario 1:The firm blossoms, and you become a rich person. In the same vein, an outwardly risky trade may ultimately expose a certain weakness in your opponent’s position, paving the way for a decisive attack.
Scenario 2: The firm is moderately prosperous, and you are repaid in the amount of your initial investment. Similarly, the trade does not change the evaluation of the position: you ended exactly where you started.
Scenario 3: Disaster strikes, and the startup collapses. You sustain irreversible financial losses. Analogously, the trade—for one reason or another—backfires, creating fatal weaknesses in your own camp and leading to an imminent loss.
In both the arena of business and the world
of chess, the final scenario is, unfortunately, all too common. No matter how assiduously we strive to alter our nature, humans are and always will be prone to impulsive, emotional thinking. While such unrestrained, “hot” decision-making contrib utes to our survival skills in the real world, it almost invariably brings about the dreaded third scenario in the land of 64 squares. In the endgame, we must take especially great
care to avoid making moves purely on the basis of intuition or instinct. When faced with a trade, the temptation to do so increases hundredfold, simply because it is easy to form a subconscious judgment about the soundness of the trade long before one actually starts calculating. With material limited, an imprudent capture—especially one that takes the game into a highly volatile pawn or knight ending—will lead to instant calamity. In this article, I would like to investigate this
common pitfall through the lens of a recent endgame battle between two elite grandmasters. In the course of our analysis, we will derive
46 April 2016 | Chess Life AFTER 44. Qc3
(Note: this game is also annotated in our Wijk aan Zee article on pages 41-42. ~ed.) You are probably well aware that Magnus
Carlsen, true to his reputation, stormed through the field and claimed his fifth Tata Steel title. Viewed through the lens of this convincing victory, Carlsen’s round 11 game against Hou Yifan may appear like a typical Magnus win: he attained a slight edge from the opening, expanded it in the middlegame, and reeled in the full point with sparkling endgame technique. However, a closer and more objective look reveals that things were not nearly as one-sided. From a purely visual standpoint, it seems
that White is the one on top. Although his queenside pawn structure is somewhat weakened, the pawn on c5 does holds back Black’s entire pawn chain, securing two potential passageways for the monarch along the dark squares (c3-d4-e5, and c3-b4-a5-b6).
several mental “hacks” that will enable you to limit the amount of careless mistakes that you make in the endgame, especially ones that involve assessing a trade and its consequences (hint: take careful note of those last two words!).
HAMLET’S SOLILOQUY, TATA STEEL EDITION GM Magnus Carlsen (2844) GM Hou Yifan (2673)
Tata Steel Chess 2016 (11), Wijk aan Zee, North Holland, 01.29.2016
Consequently, the dilemma that stands before Hou Yifan is one of life-or-death implications: to trade, or not to trade? When faced with such a dilemma, inexpe-
rienced players often find themselves at a loss. Where do I start? Do I try to calculate all of the alternatives, or do I rely primarily on my intuition? There is obviously no foolproof algorithm that will enable you to arrive at the correct decision 100% of the time, but my experience has led me to believe that the following three-step process will greatly elimi - nate your chances of committing a blunder when confronted with a possible trade:
Step 1. Calculate the consequences of the trade first. If the trade clearly leads to a desired result, there is no need to spend more than a few seconds on the alternatives. If, however, you do not arrive at a clear-cut conclusion, immediately move on to step 2.
Step 2. Consider the different possible ways that you can decline the trade. Do they all lead to the same position? If yes, try to understand the nature of the arising position, and calculate as much as you can. If not, evaluate each move separately—not all ways of declining a trade are created equal!
Step 3. If you cannot decide between trading or not trading (or between two ways of declining the trade), use your intuition in an intelligent way. Rather than choosing randomly, try to determine which continuation yields the greatest margin for error. Usually, entering a pawn ending in which you are unsure if you can hold presents a far greater risk than leaving the queens on the board, when your opponent has slightly more active pieces.
Now, let us apply this method to the position on the board:
Step 1. The move 44. ... Qxc3+ is obviously very tempting. After 45. Kxc3, though, Black must deal with the dual threats of Kb4 and Kd4. To this end, 45. ... Ke6 allows 46. Kb4
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76