Endgame vs Opening

If only logic/computational skill determines who is better, then middlegame and non-basic endgames would win.

If it is combo of memory and logic, then all 3 phases are important.

By the way, are there any chess960 gods who are not GMs because they decided not to memorize openings?   Yet I would think learning openings would help with logic even, just because of seeing the various patterns of setting up and developing sound proven plans of attack/defense, etc.

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The opening since your endgame will seem to pattern out if you play an opening. Then you can focus on one particular endgame, than a varity where you can get lost.

Carlsen exploits the fact that many of his opponents have inferior endgame skills. He refuses draws, pushes into the endgame and grindswins that are called mad skill miraculous.

They're not (well, he calculates a storm), but he also wins because of the custom of resigning the moment an opponent has achieved a tactical advantage that results in significant piece gain, usually in the middle game. This means that a lot of players have very bad endgame skills, because they don't reach it - whether from an inferior or superior position. The game was stopped back before 40.

Look at Nakamura in London. Flailing wildly in the endgame, which I bet you he's been working hard on since.

Carlsen is a percentage player. In the opening, he scores his percentage by pushing into unfamiliar territory; in the middle game, he poses problems that eats the opponent's clock; and in the endgame, he's laughing all the way to the bank because of the silly mistakes his opponents make. (Ponomariov at Amber managed to park his King instead of placing it on g4, effectively shutting it out of the center it had to go to, as it landed behind a rook barrier. A "rookie" mistake if ever there was one. Just one of many examples from a Carlsen game.)

Should one study the endgame? Capablanca was the least error prone of all the world champions (analysis of their games carried out recently); he had the fewest losses; the best W-L-D percentage. He had a winning streak which lasted for 10 years - TEN YEARS. He says: begin by studying the endgame.

 ENDGAME! I have OFTEN heard it said by several GMs "If you want to get good at chess...STUDY THE ENDGAME!"

One good reason why studying the endgame is beneficial is that it teaches good chess thinking : making a (mini) plan, calculating accurately many short variations, taking into account your opponent's replies, thinking about which squares you control or not...

All of this is quite useful in the other stages of the game. The advantage of the endgame is that you can see the consequences unfold more clearly and that it's relatively easier to cope with the reduced material on the board

This thread seems to be another way of asking the following questions...

i) Comparing endgame with opening, which gives more bang for the buck per unit time studying for a given level of chess skill? 

ii) What ratio of time spent studying should be devoted to endgames versus openings at the various levels of play?   

iii) Does studying one phase of the game (ending vs opening in this thread) provide more transferrable benefits to overall chess skill (for instance, studying strategy in general may help with openings whereas studying openings may not transfer to strategic/positional skill in unfamiliar positions out of the book).

At higher levels of play, openings and studying specific weaknesses seems important.

But the beginner or crappy player is weak in all phases, so we can work on any phase and gain "something", but then there is concern for training correctly for overall chessic development rather than trying to gain a few hundred points quickly through traps and memorizing opening lines against fellow crappy players. 

A ballpark answer would be nice for an adult who will never be master, in order to have as doable/efficient/effective chess training regimen as possible without wasted years of haphazard studying/practice.

Each covers a very wide area of knowledge. At one point the answer could be the endgame, at another point the answer could be the opening. Looking from your game, you may not need to study opening for quite a long time.

There's no such thing.

If your rating is below 1500, you can improve very fast, by knowing some "basic skill and knowledge", something that is easy to learn while the result is material. The problem is you may not know what these basic skill and knowledge are, and where you can find information about them.

Having a "best seller" chess book is necessary. Start with the simple one so to make sure that you will benefit from it, no need to rush with reading Mark Dvoretsky's. Having one endgame manual is mandatory, so you can consult critical chapter anytime you need it.

Having a "coach" to show you the way is the most effective and fastest way. You can join a team in chess.com (or create one if not yet available) where any top member of the team will be encouraged to share their knowledge with the "young" members, e.g. by becoming a coach for at least one of the young members. Then both of you can go thru your games and the coach will show you your mistake and the reason why it is a mistake so you can play better next time. From any one game you have played, you will surely learn at least one new knowledge.

I know right? So philosophical. "If you study the endgame, your whole game will fall in harmony with each other". It sure sounds wise, but is it really true?

I would think there is more than one way to get better at chess, both methods probably work if done right.

I simply study (mostly) the middlegame and opening (the point being to get into a good middlegame position where you know your plan and the tactical ideas) and by the time I'm in an endgame I'm already up so much my opponent would probably resign by then. And get this, I can go the other way around: my middlegame knowledge has helped me make plans in the endgame, like maneouvering a knight to a good square, playing for a pawn break on the queenside and penetrating, etc. I do know the basic technical positions and general ideas, but I never go too deeply into endgame study.

Agreed.

Chessontology is as old as Philidor ("pawns are the soul of chess")

Maybe Philidor had the right to engage in a bit of hyperbole. Plato did some of that too, but when sophomores do it, it sounds a bit... sophomoric.

It's true, but I was thinking more of standard basic endings that you find in textbooks. Some OTB endings are of course extremely difficult.

I made NM concentrating my study time on openings/tactics/middlegame and STILL have not seriously studied complex endings. Ofcourse I learned the basic endings/checkmates and they dont require a great deal of study. Perhaps if I would seriously study endings I could finally break the 2300 (otb) barrier and get a FM title....... I might never know as I cant seem to make myself study endings seriously.

For me its simply not logical to study endings without studying openings and middlegames. If you have a bad opening you aren't likely to have a good middlegame and if you have a poor middlegame you aren't likely to reach an ending in which you are not already "lost", objectively speaking. Ofcourse , some games are decided in the opening and many are decided in the middlegame so even if you play endings like a Smyslov or Capablanca you will NOT be able to show anyone IF you dont get there first.

For anyone starting the game it makes sense to focus almost solely on Endgames. Improvement at any discipline will be a whole lot smoother later on if one's foundation is as solid as it possibly can be.

In chess an in depth knowledge of the subtleties of each piece is most important. This is logically best learned by studying those pieces in their most pure setting: on a board uncluttered by other material. So when you take the dive into more complex middlegames and openings your thinking is going to be focused on the essential factors as the piece movements are already well ingrained into your subconscious. An analogy would be a soccer player who deeply studys formations before his basic touch and technique is as solid as possible is also going about learning in the wrong way entirely (but unfortunately it's how kids learn in England). Of course this isn't necessary for improvement, but certainly it'll make it a whole lot easier. As proven practically by the Russians.

Admittedly I haven't dived into deep endgame study at all and as a result my foundation isn't as solid as it should be considering my actual level of positional understanding. So now I'm going to focus a lot more of study on that area (plus when I get to the Endgame I'm terrible anyway). And Elubas, I've heard you say before on the forums that you can give players rated much higher than you a good game and even outplay them before usually giving the game away with a blunder. This isn't surprising to me considering the way you've been learning.

I wouldn't study one part in particular over another.  I'd only look at these stages as individual parts after the game.  I like to look at it as a whole. 

Although it could be argued that openings are more important because without them you're not likely to see many end-games against a good opponent.

I think that Capablanca's argument that endgame should be studied first runs as follows: opening needs to be studied in relation to the middlegame and the endgame, middlegame needs to be studied in relation to the endgame, only endgame can be studied by itself. So, it might well make sense for beginners to study the endgame first because it is the easiest to learn, but it doesn't necessarily make it the most important. In fact, you should be prepared to lose many games without getting a chance to apply your endgame knowledge.

I think the most important part of the end-game is the transition from middle game to end-game which obviously happens in the middle game.    

A good arguement could be made for all parts which is why there's no point to studying one over the other. 

It's all Chess to me. 

I just played a blitz game where I had a strong attack on my opponent's king but only 20 seconds left on the clock.

Under this time pressure I was finding it hard to see a way to continue the attack.  But because of my endgame knowledge (note that we were still basically in the middlegame), I quickly saw a way of cutting off the opponent's king, preventing it from running into the corner behind the pawns.  I played these "cutting off" moves, and a few moves later I mated my opponent with only three seconds left on the clock.

Without my endgame knowledge, I just would not have thought up this "cutting off the king" technique in time, and I surely would have lost on time.  It was so tempting to simply check the opponent's king instead, but then the king would have simply fled to safety.

This is a simple example, but I think it demonstrates that endgame principles and thinking techniques can apply in any phase of the game.

oping due to i had a godd onping and horible end game yet i still won due to i was losing lots of pecies in the end game but it was only trading to have him prevent check forced hime to give up all but his queen when he resined