@Superking500. If no player made mistakes, then every game would be won by the player playing White since if both White and Black play flawlessly, White maintains the initiative throughout the game and turns a small positional advantage into a win.
Nonsense. Almost every strong player who has thought seriously about this issue believes that White's slight advantage is not enough for a win, and chess is most probably drawn given perfect play by both sides.
I see that it was in another thread I posted the links to endgames between Carlsen and Kramnik. There have been quite a few interesting ones, like:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1604585 Look at the position at move 40, and then see how instructively Carlsen wins an endgame that easily could have been drawn
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1602565 The position around move 60 should be lost for Carlsen who is piece down, but he still manages to draw
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1578370 Around move 50 Carlsen is just two pawns down but the game is drawn
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1563791 Position around move 48 looks difficult to hold against connected passers but Carlsen makes it look easy
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1699943 Pawn down endgame around move 36, that maybe was even more dangerous a few moves earlier, but still a draw from a difficult position
I think Carlsen spend a lot of time on the end game. He already sees how he will be in an edngame starting from the very first move. So, the position of pieces are played to achieve the endgame he saw from move 1.
This is a novelty. Unlike Tal and Fischer who were very good in middle game, Carlsen just want to achieve an endgame.
Karpov, Kasparov and sometimes Anand play positional game.
How do they compare? I think B. Fischer still had the edge.
And one more thing to remember, Carlsen is only a player with highest rating. He is not a World champion yet. And I don't think if he becomes a World champion, he will last more than 3 years. 3 years is the most.
Well, B Fischer only held it for less than 3 years. But he walked away as a World Champion.
Carlsen fate will be similar to Radjabov. And he will not have a chance to walk away as a WC. And he will give up chess soon.
I also think instead of Carlsen being a King of endgames, he is more suitable with King of "barely". The game that he won vs Radjabov (if you like it) can be categorized as "barely" win. And he barely reaches WC match vs Anand. (Kramnik should have known it). Will it be that he barely wins the World Championship?
Compare to B. Fischer, B Fischer won the candidate matches and World Champion convincingly. And he is the only one to score 11/11 on US Championship.
Idiot.
Kramnik-Carlsen Tata Steel 2011 was not a drawish endgame at all. Rather, it showed how weak computers are in evaluating endgames. Both Kramnik and Carlsen knew that White was busted. Kramnik played just about as well as possible and still lost. I saw the game live with grandmasters commenting on the game. They didn't give Kramnik much chance to save it after move 25 even though the engines didn't recognise how bad the situation was.
Yes, Carlsen has excellent endgame technique, but I believe any of the top four endgame players in the world, Kramnik, Aronian, Carlsen, and Anand, would have won as Black after move 25.
Here's the game:
5 connected pawns versus three pawn islands including two isolated pawns PLUS A PAWN UP and then you guys call this 'endgame technique'.
it goes without saying that the strength of any strong player is the MIDDLEGAME.
endgames dont come about by a roll of the dice.
it goes without saying that the strength of any strong player is the MIDDLEGAME.
endgames dont come about by a roll of the dice.
I don't think so. Certainly a person can be a stronger endgame player than they are a middle game player even if that person is professional class.
Kramnik-Carlsen Tata Steel 2011 was not a drawish endgame at all. Rather, it showed how weak computers are in evaluating endgames. Both Kramnik and Carlsen knew that White was busted. Kramnik played just about as well as possible and still lost. I saw the game live with grandmasters commenting on the game. They didn't give Kramnik much chance to save it after move 25 even though the engines didn't recognise how bad the situation was.
GM Shipov, GM Nunn and GM Mueller all analysed the endgame in great detail and concluded that it was drawn, an opinion that was shared by Carlsen himself. Some quotes:
"In Wijk aan Zee in a drawn position Carlsen played on and took home the full point in a masterful and highly instructive endgame performance. Deep analysis by GM Karsten Mueller"
Mueller points out that Kramnik could have drawn with 44. h4, as does Shipov. Nunn underlines that Carlsen meant that Kramnik had to play carelessly to lose the endgame, etc. Some links, the first going to Mueller's deep analysis of the endgame:
http://en.chessbase.com/home/TabId/211/PostId/4006995
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1604585
Seirawan and Speelman both pointed out Carlsen's winning plan in that game. It's not certain that 44.h4 would have drawn.
Anyway, I see you didn't mention today's endgame between Carlsen and Wang Hao.
A single game doesn't mean that Carlsen is a bad endgame player. He's one of the four best in the world. We'll find out in November if he's better than Anand.
Thanks for sharing the link to Mueller's comments on Kramnik-Carlsen. Kramnik considers that he made two blunders. h4-h5 would have made things much more difficult for Black to win. But the second blunder may not have changed the result.
I'll have to see if I can dig up Seirawan's and Speelman's analysis. They gave it live, so I'm not sure if it's preserved anywhere. In their analysis, they couldn't find a way to save the game, and if I remember correctly, they didn't believe h4 could save White due to the same plan of attacking from the rear. But again, that was live analysis, not in-depth analysis made well after the game had finished.
Another Carlsen vs Kramnik endgame to the list of games that doesn't make it easier to support the idea that Carlsen's endgame skills are below Kramnik's:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1721322
Carlsen is going to be the next Karpov.
but he wont be swimming in billions of dollars like karpov
Not unless his modeling career heats up, no.
Yes, Carlsen really did beat Kramnik convincingly in this endgame. Combined with Anand's loss, things are not looking good for the older generation.
Carlsen needs to write an endgame book.
Teach me master..
Yes, Carlsen really did beat Kramnik convincingly in this endgame. Combined with Anand's loss, things are not looking good for the older generation.
Yes. And against Kramnik, of all people.
You don't see him lose like that too often.
In general, when comparing the endgame strength of players today with that of Karpov, Smyslov etc, it's hard to exaggerate the importance of the adjournments. I was just reading a bit in the first volume of Kasparov on Kasparov, and at several occasions Kasparov mentions that he and his team analysed the adjourned position in great detail for many hours and reached as deep as 50-60 ply down in some variations.
It is a big difference between playing a long game in one go, with little time on the clock, and to get an evening and night to analyse the position together with a team of GMs. Especially of course title matches were deeply analysed during the adjournments, and still the moves made in them were less correct than those made by the top finishers in the latest Candidates (even if the exactness of this type of analysis shouldn't be exaggerated it is still interesting to look at the results):
carlsen is good at giving away advantages for trading in other advantages. in both of the above mentioned games, he maintained his outside rook's pawn and both his wins were supported by that pawn.
in his game against nakamura, he temporarily sacrificed a pawn, gave nakamura a q-side majority, but got a mobile center.