Learning Openings, midgame, and endgame

@bp

I'd give capablanca more weight if I felt like anything about him was instructive for my game.  unfortunately, no.

I'm convinced he's just entirely out of my league.

with that in mind,  why should his advice on improvement be taken seriously (for me)?

here's the thing about him.

he's a huge prodigy.   not one in a thousand passionate dedicated kids are anywhere near as talented and strong as him.

so I think his advice is more relevant to prodigies.

and people that quickly rise to 2000 because they have amazing board vision are probably not studying NEARLY enough endgames. 

The eternal argument of what should be studied first?  

For me, the best explanation on why endings should be studied first was this:

Endgings are the foundation of the game.  Like a house, without a strong foundation the house will not stand.  

Middlegame: These are the walls of the house, the frame of the house.  

Openings: This is the roof.  It doesnt matter how nice, strong, expensive, etc. the roof is.  Without a strong frame the roof will cave in on the rest of the house.  

But for us lowly class players, whatever works for you is best.  

yeah. good point.

I'm going to regret getting involved in this one, aren't I?

the endgame/opening argument is one of those classic no-win, perpetual arguments.  having engaged in the talkative mexican  I'm due for a take-down.  just remember its friday.  and I was feeling like being involved today.

but if you little cretains get too loud; I was, am and always will be a weak patzer.   you have nothing to gain by besting my obviously lacking chess improvement ideas.

so once you're doing calling me for what I am. don't be so sure of yourself.  you're not the WCC either.

and they'd be no argument if every chess coach/strong player/gm/wcc saw this issue exactly the same....

I doubt you have studied chess properly, heck, I dont even know If I have studied chess the proper way. That may explain why you dont find his masterpieces of any value.

Look at that video, I watched it like 9-10 months ago, after just learning chess, I enjoyed every single minute of it and found it pretty instructive, even when I was more patzer than what I am now.

This post ranks right up there with the greats:

"Im an agressive/tactical player.  What opening should i play?"

"I know the <insert opening here> 20 moves deep, but i hang pieces.  What do i need to do?"

"Is <insert favorite GM here> the greatest of all time?"

Unfortunately these have all been replaced with:

"Can i be a GM/World Champion in <insert time frame here>?"

ty.

that's pretty nice of you.  I'll definitely watch it and try to figure it out.

I don't follow diakona. sorry.  why is my post like the other ones??

or do you simply mean that endgames vs openings is like other perpetual arguments?

I also give the op a little bit of credit; he didn't ask about the opening/endgame

he wanted book recommendations for each.

this whole topic is a thread derail, really.

There are plenty of good books that focus on those things, but you'd be better off studying endgames and middle-games before studying books on openings.  There is no point playing a brilliant opening, but neither knowing why your moves are good, nor what to do with your good position when you get there.

watch youtube videos by The Backyard Professor ...  

What determines when the middle game begins and when the end game begins? Or is it just based on opinion?

Normally the middlegame starts once all pieces have been developed and the endgame starts once pieces leave the board and the material is reduced, usually without quees on the board.

You will learn yourself when do those start once you start analyzing annotated games.

"Can it really be that the endgame is more important than other phases of the game?

I would say that it is more a question of balance than of one phase being more worthy of our study time than another. Let us sketch the portrait of a modern player to illustrate the typical imbalance:

> ... it is no great task to build up a high-level opening repertoire. Time consuming perhaps, but the path to take is not a difficult one. ...

> Combined with the knowledge of standard schemes in the middlegame - linked to their opening repertoire (which is relatively easy to attain, by playing through master games in the relevant openings) - we have painted the picture of quite a formidable foe.

All of this is perfectly reasonable, and I encourage the reader to spend time doing exactly these things.

We have, however, a clear motivation here for focusing (at least some) of our chess energy on the endgame ..." - some of what IM Jonathan Hawkins wrote immediately after the "biggest leap" sentence in his book, Amateur to IM

oh my gosh. really??

no . don't do that!  this is not how the positional game is played. there are many guys that can explain how a strong player wins.

the BYP simply never mastered the basics of chess.

many people have figured this out. the whole Endgame/opening was never the main topic of this thread.

not only is the argument endless- but its simply a distraction to what the op needs to hear.

BTW. there are good books that explain the basic principles of an opening.  and that IS important for a beginner to learn about .  I learnt most of the general ideas of chess;  both of the opening and the endgame in a little gem of a book from reinfeld- called the "Complete chess player" (look it up)

you don't have assume that you need 2 separate books to do the job.

if you're still a beginner- you don't.

hmmm

@phriex

do you really have to argue it further

I also think end games are really important. If you understand endgames you understand what positions you can simplify to which are to your advantage in the middegame. It even helps you understand openings because the pawn structures that define openings become major factors in the ending. 

Should it be the first thing you learn. No. That would be ridiculous in my opinion. 

But is it a good idea to learn endgame technique before learning lots about openings. I would say so. All you need for the opening is a grasp of opening principles. After that, I would focus on endgames and tactical motifs. 

One of my favorite quotes:

A mistake in the opening you can recover from.  A mistake in the middlegame will hurt you.  A mistake in the endgame will kill you.

I think the Hawkins book contains this: "Can it really be that the endgame is more important than the other phases of the game

I would say that it is more a question of balance than of one phase being more worthy of our study time than another. Let us sketch the portrait of a modern player to illustrate the typical imbalance:

> ... it is no great task to build up a high-level opening repertoire. Time consuming perhaps, but the path to take is not a difficult one. ...

> Combined with the knowledge of standard schemes in the middlegame - linked to their opening repertoire (which is relatively easy to attain, by playing through master games in the relevant openings) - we have painted the picture of quite a formidable foe.

All of this is perfectly reasonable, and I encourage the reader to spend time doing exactly these things.

We have, however, a clear motivation here for focusing (at least some) of our chess energy on the endgame ..."

By the way, it is perhaps worthwhile to think about the percentage of amateurs who actually aspire to be an IM.

"... 'Chess Fundamentals' ... does not deal so minutely as this book will with the things that beginners need to know. ... The third volume will treat mainly of the openings. ...

... we shall begin by giving a few simple mates and simple endings which will serve as a guide for the student. ...

... Let us now return to the study of certain endings and the principles involved therein. ...

... Half a dozen different openings, well learned, are about all the average player needs to obtain good results. ...

... This constitutes the Ruy Lopez ...

... We have now gone over one of the main variations of this most important opening. Because of its importance we are giving below some of the main variations used by the experts, with very light comments of a general nature. ...

... Let us now take up the openings arising from 1 P-Q4. ... this opening has been left for the end of the book, hoping that by the time the reader gets to it, his game will have improved enough to warrant his going into the complicated variations arising from P-Q4. ...

... Let us now look at some of those [variations] arising from [1 P-Q4 P-Q4 2 P-QB4] P-QB3. ...

... Let us now look at some of the variations arising from some of the irregular forms of defence against White's first move P-Q4. ..." - J. R. Capablanca's Primer of Chess