Just how good at the endgame was Capablanca

Hello!

I recently purchased a book titled "Capablanca Move by Move." From the first few pages, it is clear that Capablanca is the author's favorite player. However, he says something along the lines of "Capablanca was almost without peer in the endgame. Only Bobby Fischer could match his accuracy in technical endings." This comment certainly interested me, since Bobby Fischer is famous for saying Capablanca didn't win because of his endgame. Others, like Pal Benko, have also said Capablanca was overrated in endings. On the other hand, Emanuel Lasker and David Bronstein are known for highly praising Capablanca's endgame technique. I wanted to know your view of things. How good was Capablanca in the endgame? From what I've seen, I'm impressed, but that's because I have zero-endgame technical skills :)

You'd think Benko would have a realistic appreciation for their endgame ability.

+1 BUT let's not forget my hero V. Smyslov! 

The 10 Greatest Endgame players/writers and/or composers according to GM Soltis:         http://www.ajschess.com/lifemasteraj/gp_10-best1.html

Who is  everybody?!

Gary Kasparov said in an interview that the endgame is the weakest part of younger players game and he's right alot of them at the lower level don't study it they only focus on openings and tactics and at the higher level some GM's (try world champions) have been caught not knowing how to win basic endings like Bishop and Knight and King vs King.

Capablanca and Rubinstien wouldn't be too impressed with them either!

Capblanca was a wonder.

Perhaps a bit off topic, but does it seem to any others that club players can learn more from the greats such as Capa, Lasker, etc, than from today's elite? Even Spassky, Petrosian, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, etc, may be better to learn from? Carlsen, Kramnik, Topalov, etc, their games often appear to have a complex mesh of things going on, not as distinctive.   

Certainly.

why the hell does that guy not have karpov in his list of greatest tournament players? he has an insane number of tournament wins under his belt. 

I can judge

A large collection of Capablanca's games.

I also have Problems with endgames, hell how do i win an endgame with rook and pawn against king and knight

Anyway to be honest capablanca is not that clear to me. To be honest to me some of his games dont even look certain winning to me. I know its because of My weakness, but to be honest i like tarrasch games more.

Sometimes, you just cannot. If the pawn has not gone past the 4th rank before being blocked, it's insanely difficult, when not impossible.

Capablanca might not be very clear because his play was more based on evaluation than calculation. It was his unusual talent that he knew what the best move is without calculating. This is why his play can be hard to understand.

Irontiger wrote:

TetsuoShima wrote:

I also have Problems with endgames, hell how do i win an endgame with rook and pawn against king and knight

Sometimes, you just cannot. If the pawn has not gone past the 4th rank before being blocked, it's insanely difficult, when not impossible.

Thanks i thought im just so bad

Tablebases are good for stuff like that

Diskus isnt that how all GMs play??

No, and I don't believe Capablanca did either, or he would have made every move instantly. Of course he calculated.

Capa calculated but less than another players. He had an enormous feel of the position and after finding the best move quickly he just had to check whether it is tactically sound - here actual calculations took place.