Midgame questions.

LOL a pawn pusher after my own heart!!

I am amazed, I can find players 100, even 200 points above me, lost when it comes to the endgame. They just don't consider it "Real Chess"

I recently won an rook endgame I entered with the following pawn structure :

me : a2 c2 c3 f2 f3 h2 (looks tasty, huh ?)

him : a7 b7 c7 d7 g7 h7

I even had slightly less active pieces at first.

Ok, I could imagine it is hard to win this against tenacious defense, but to lose it is really hard... Some people really do not care about endgames.

I'm going to try to have a decent midgame before trying to improve my endgame.  It's no use learning about endgames if you get into them in a worse position.

See my previous comment, though it is an extreme example... It is ! Of course if you are one piece down you are dead, but as long as you get something playable...

I think that perhaps if I can get into endgames with at least an equal position, I should be okay, but it's hard to do that when my midgame is terrible.  I do realize that endgame is important though, and have worked on improving it steadily.  It's just that I don't know how to work on improving my midgame and am seeking help from those knowledgable in what I need assistance in.

Let me try to answer these:

1. In the middle game (where the position has started to settle and a plan can be created), I try to understand the position first [What are the weaknesses in my opponent's camp? What are the weaknesses in my position? How can he/she/I exploit them? If there are no weaknesses, can I create some? can my opponent create some in my position? What does the pawn structure tell me? Should I play in the Queen's or in the King's side?]. Basically, I try to figure out WHAT to do. Only when I have figured out what to do do I calculate HOW to do it/them.

2. Generally, it is only better to simplify when you are up in material. One rook and a bishop (8) against a bishop (3) is a lot better than two rooks and a bishop (13) against a rook and a bishop (8) from a mathematical point of view. However, it would also be wise to simplify the position when you have a more cramped position than your opponent. This way, the opponent loses the advantage of space (since he is losing the pieces that are benefiting from that space).

3. This is "normally" acquired by experience, but I don't buy that (I've played 1000+ chess games and remained stuck with a rating of 800). It is generally not advisable to set-up traps (if this is what you meant by setting up tactics). A grandmaster would rarely fall for a trap, and you would most likely be only worsening your position. My advice would be to gain some positional understanding (the WHAT) first. Only then would you be able to apply them to improve (the HOW) your position AND you would know how your opponent would improve his position. Since this is the HOW part, you would automatically be calculating the right Tactics both on your part and your opponent's part.

A grandmaster (I forgot the name!) said something like, "The more you understand about the position, the less you would have to calculate." Based on my experience, this is true. It's better to be able to know where to look that simply randomly calculating variations only to find out that the opponent would move something else.

Keep it up!

Thanks, bud.

*whispers* (When I don't know what to do, I move a knight! Something's bound to pop up eventually.)

Sometimes, but it's usually more like, "Which pawn do I push to stall for another turn?"

Difference being, knights can always move backwards. Pawns cannot.

That's why you should move your pawns first, promote all the survivors to knights, and then only start moving the knights.

I'll try stalling with knights now.