Endgame repertoire

Have anyone been able to create an endgame opening repertoire for white AND black ? An opening repertoire that has the goal to reach an endgame as fast as possible. Hopefully with the aim of playing for the win from a very small opening advantage ? ("Play for the win with the draw in hand").

I hope the collected knowledge in this forum could lead to interesting answers.

Some thoughts : Should the best start for white be 1. Nf3 ? As it can transpose to different opening likes 1.d4, 1.e4,1,c4 ? Or should one opt for 1.e4 or 1.d4 ? This is a very interesting topic. Some people may find it boring as they aim for Kings Gambit/Morra Gambit/BDG attacks at all cost. I am different. I can take a draw as white. Thats OK. But the slightest mistake by my oponent will be severly punished and I love to win a long endgame battle. 

As black I think that against 1.e4 I go for the Caro-Kann and against 1.d4 I play the solid QGA. Both are quite solid choices but against the caro I feel that white can seek complications (panov and advanced variation for ex) so maybe the french is a better choice here ? French (dxe4 and Burn variation) and QGA ?

Against the english 1.c4 I play :

1.c4 e6 aiming for the QGA if allowed...but that is rather tricky. English opening is very flexible so it is not easy to go for an endgame ...or ?

1.Nf3 d5 going for QGA if allowed.

So there are many ideas and variations to choose from. The problem is to get it all together and create an endgame repertoire. A nice thing is if my oponent can be as restricted as possible. If I play 100 games against him ..I hope that he feels that he is sitting and playing the same opening over and over...and also finding it rather difficult to escape them.

Shoot!

I doubt your "endgame repertoire" idea is going to hold water. 

My reasons:

- An opening repertoire is really only designed to  get to a playable middlegame with equality at worst and an advantage at best. Whether this advantage carries over to the endgame is a factor of how the game progresses .... nobody coasts on auto-pilot towards a "advantageous endgame" even if they go about trading pieces willy-nilly. You're giving your opponents far too little credit.  

- This whole notion of "beginning your fight in the endgame" reads as INFLEXIBLE. A strong opponent will probably destroy you in the endgame to begin with BUT is ready to mutilate you in the middle game or even right out of the opening. He plays the board, he plays the position and not to some "fast-forward 20 moves and then I'll play chess" mantra. 

Now if you are instead designing a repertoire to help you against tactical monsters such as computers or the pint-sized prodigies at your local club, you'd probably make more sense. You can hand-pick lines that give the game a less sharp feel to it ... giving you adequate time to realize a plan in the early stages rather than have your opponent go for your throat within the first 10 moves.

Update: There may be one instance where the OP's strategy will work => Playing inexperienced opponents (usually kids) who never had the time / patience to work on their endgame. In this instance, I'd think dragging them kicking and screaming to an endgame(however dry and boring!) may help you as they'll be more likely to misplay it than you do.  Though this is still an exception ... you can't assume things about every kind of opponent.

Hell, play the Colle.

When people lament how lame the Colle is, it's usually because they're insistent that white maintains no route to advantage against strong play by black.  They lament that it peters out to stale equality where neither side has any legit attacking chances, and you may as well grab a couple cold ones and call it a day.

Nobody ever (justifiably) criticizes the Colle on the grounds that it's unsound or loses for white.  It's just solid and unambitious if black plays well, and leads to the same dull sort of structures, time and time again.

Sounds like just your cup of tea.

You are not the first one that such a notion has stricken.  Nor is it so doomed a premise as schivsky may make it seem.  I agree with some of his comments about flexibility.  Although to know that you can outplay your opponent in the endgame, or at least believe that you can, is definitely an advantage.  GM Nigel Davies has some suggestions

http://www.chesspublishing.com/content/repert2.htm#end

I don't agree with all of them.  In my experience, going for solid pawn structures in your openings, and hopefully maintaining it in the middlegame, will give you better endgame chances, as well as super calculation and knowledge of pawn levers.  Of course you can't skip the middlegame, but always keeping aware of the possibility to transition into a won endgame is the key.   I also like this...I play the English as white lately(previously also 1.d4)  .  The French against 1. e4 (sometimes 1...e5 when I am in the mood), and the Stonewall Dutch against everything else.  The Berlin defense also transfers into an engame rather quickly, but you have to be prepared for all the other possibilities after 1...e5, some of which are very tactical. 

I know Edmar Medinis used to point out a lot of variations, I don't know if he ever put them in one place.   You probably don't want to play 1e4, since in a lot of Semi-open defenses (Sicilian, French, Caro-Kann, ect) the endgames tend to favor Black and White has to be very aggressive to maintain an advantage.  Most favorable endgames come from having such an advantage in the middlegame, that the other side was forced to seek exchanges to survive.

I think this note seems very interesting. Kinda limiting your oponent also. Could there be even better to play 1.Nf3 ? But that depends on your choice against the QGD and KID.

One good thing is to avoid 1.c4 e5 which is a very complex system on its own .Since I should play QGD Exchange variation with knight on f3 its ok for me to open 1.Nf3. And also I play exchange Slav with knight on f3...so I see no direct advantage of playing 1.c4. Of course it helps me to avoid the Hedgehog if I play the move order 1.c4 followed by 2.g3. It kills of a black dynamic system .So the question is wether to face a hedgehog or 1.c4 e5...thats the question for me. I have to think about the endgame prospects here and the way it limits my oponent.

I guess 1.c4 e5 anyhow gives my oponent a huge choice of possibilities. Everything from 4-knights with Bb4 or Bc5 to dutch or different e5-f5 setups,reversed dragon,Keres systems and more.

1.Nf3 also discourage some people from chosing the dynamic dutch because of 2.d3 although dutch players can fight 2.d3 I think.

So the endgame prospects between 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 ? Well...Maybe it feels like 1.Nf3 could be the choice anyhow because of the above mention 1.c4 e5 complex. Ulf Andersson...an endgame expert preffered 1.Nf3. But he played the Catalan with Qa4+ against the QGD formation. Very solid but "dull as dishwater" as Nigel Davies described this system in his 'Play the Catalan" book.

You mentioned the french...yes thats very solid. I will go for the Rubinstein system with 4...Nd7. GM Nikita Vitiugov says this system is a  better choice than the Fort Knox wich he thinks is too passive.

You mention the Stonewall dutch. Well ..thats an interesting choice. You can met 1.d4 with 1..e6..as you can when playing the QGA also (therby avoiding and limiting the white choice of playing the "Bishop Attack or Pseudo Trompowsky). So what about the endgameprospects with the Sonewall Dutch ? Personally I have managed to drag strong players into endgames with the QGA and they kinda have overpressed the position....trying too hard to win... and I managed to win (just because they "must beat a boring weaky like me" :) . I feel rather solid and safe with the QGA.

I think GM Evgeny Gleizerov seems to have a very interesting black French+Stonewall repertoire. He is very solid as black. He is even more solid and difficult to beat as white but he plays 1.d4 and "normal" 1.d4 openings so to say. Not really endgame oriented. 

My goal of couese is to have an endgame repertoire like this and have a rather economical approach to opening theory as well. Instead I want to focus more on the bridge between the opening and the endgame by studying the endgame very much. Also spend more time on tactics of course.

Playing the Colle....well its very very solid..so an interesting choice.

Thanks for the suggestions :) I think the picture is getting a little more clear after all.

Well 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3. Nf3  and Good bye Benko!

So it is not a good choice against 1.d4 for me. I have a higher procentage and chance to get QGA in I guess.

I dont have Shereshevskys books you mention. Only a russian book by Shereshevsky titled (badly translated) "contours of the endgame".

That book focuses on the connection between the opening and the endgame (only 1.e4 openings unfortunately). Bobby Fischer actually mentioned this book in one of his radio interviews (dont remember which one though).

I didn't mean to say that my opening choices transition into endgames automatically, or even regularly, but that they give clear pawn structures that I understand, and can more clearly help me transition into an endgame where I have an advantage.  You are right about c4 e5, it is complex, and often times you have the opponents planning wins in middle game play, BUT you also get to have two center pawns in many variations after ...d5 cxd Nxd and 0-0, which can lead to some advantages in pawn structure and position.  The other benefit of play c4, is that your opponent, 9 times out of 10, doesn't know their response to the english nearly as well as their preferred responses to d4 and e4.  Although, I digress, and that has nothing to do with engames.  I have not experimented or learned the reti move order (1.Nf3), and I don't play the Catalan, although I mean to learn it, as the English transposes to QGD (which I also play/have played) quite often.

I play the Dutch because it's flexible.  You can always go Stonewall if your Kingside attack isn't working out, which is almost theory proof, and on the other hand the Leningrad is as sharp as they come. You also have anything in between.  I play the french so the bad bishop doesn't bother me, and I can use the 'inviting the french' move order 1...e6 if I want, keep my opponent guessing....you just have to be careful about white exchanging your good bishop, sometimes he's very persistent, make sure it happens on your terms and plan ahead for that.

SchachMatt wrote : "The other benefit of play c4, is that your opponent, 9 times out of 10, doesn't know their response to the english nearly as well as their preferred responses to d4 and e4."

Well thats an important point of course and certainly makes my choice more difficult.There are many things to take into account. I knew that from the very beginning and that is why I posted this Endgame repertoire question. Its difficult to come to a clear verdict or conclusion.  :(

One can also use statistics through databases to see what openings mostly lead to endgames and what kind of endgames.

What is wrong with that Nf3 move for black? It will normally transpose, and gives white a lower statistical advantage.

I sympathize completely, I am also constantly considering opening repetoire like it's an immediate concern.  It isn't.  We're not pros, nor will be in the coming months, and learning an opening is fun.  So if you learn something, don't like it, learn something else, it will still be worthwhile.  Besides, how many great players have an extremely narrow opening rep? none of the world champions at least.  Don't limit yourself or take it too seriously.  I like learning new openings and coming back to old ones.  It keeps me fresh.  Also, I suck, and so do my opponents, and we never play more than 5 or 10 moves of theory anyway, so who cares?  You could also do tactics puzzles, it'd probably help just as much.  There's tactics in endgames too, they're just extremely unforgiving and of a slightly different character.

I've thought about this too, as it favors my style. But a good endgame arises out of a good middlegame, and forcing the issue won't help.

But on to the main point. I like the Petroff and the Caro-Kann as endgame openings for black (although these are immensely tactical too). More importantly though, I feel that one must know how to play for the endgame, such as to make the right trades, preventing attacks, or preferring to keep a certain formation rather than to bring things to the conclusion, or not cashing in on an advantage immediately keeping in mind the long term good, as might occur when we might want to win the exchange but give up positional advantage and give counterplay.

One case in point is with the isolated queen's pawn. Here, it is particularly important to keep things going, soaking up the tension, and not winning the pawn too early (these things are of course, very case dependent), at least one is fully developed. Often subtle pressure can last all the way up to the endgame.

In summary, endgames don't come right out of the opening, but it might (I can only speculate) come from keeping the right psychology.

One further point. Some great endgame players did not necessarily play endgame openings. Smyslov often played the Gruenfeld. Karpov played a lot of 1. e4, Petrosian played all kinds of funny d4 games as white and e6, c6, c5, e5 as black. My personal favorite endgamer is Kramnik, and he plays e5 and c5 as black.

who knows what i think i have been away from chess 30 years only back 3 months. but your logic seems very very flawed 2 me superficially. If u want to drag opponents into an early endgame to destroy them, this means to me you feel endgame confident. thus you will rack up a lot of lowly ranked players victories until you get better opponents who 'decline' to be dragged into endgames prematurely.

Remember chess is about 'odds' you might be able to win five times with your idea against one enemy, but it is unlikely you will win most of the time against five different enemies. to really improve in chess is to improve yourself not rely on tricks and traps that will not consistently beat more rounded players.

So if you are 'happy' with your endgame, congrats but now you need to round out your opening/middlegame/strategy/tactics and all the other basket-weaving to make you an overall better player. otherwise u will drag people lowly rated and win with your awesome endgame, maybe reach 1700 rating then you will get to stay there for a very very long time until you improve or fix your overall game and learn how to manage openings or middlegames.

maybe the best way your strategy could work is to bet your family 50$ you can reach such a rating like 1600 in 3 months, and win the 50$ so maybe it might make oyu money short term but your chess will most likely stink.

my blog has ideas about solid low maintence openings that you might build upon as your truly super-weapons.

but most players i think simply switch their games around from boredom or hoping to find some magical formula without all the hard work. simply after hundreds of years chess is to complex to suddenly discover an awesome advantage so simply like every other player born you gotta do hard work consistently to improve overall, and attempts at finding a new winning opening or amazing endgame strategy just delays you in your quest for chess improvements.

An endgame repertoire doesn't have anything to do with openings. By definition, endgame repertoires are repertoires about specific endgame positions.

Has kalle99 been here since 2011?

Against 1.e4, you have to be willing to deal with cases like the slow Italian or the King's Gambit, but the Berlin with the early Queen trade is one.  Against d4 your best bet is the Slav Defense.  The Exchange leads to trades down the c-file while the Central Variation you can play the Bishop sac line which often leads quickly to 4P and either N or B for White vs 7P for Black.  Af

Against the Dutch Variation  (6.e3), if you follow theory, it often leads to Q, R, and 1 minor piece or just Q and Minor each.

How does an endgame repertoire have to do anything with openings