Insights into Minor Piece Endgames

by ChessBase
7/15/2019 – As Jacob Aagaard writes in his foreword to Understanding Minor Piece Endgames (Müller and Konoval, 2019), “every new book written by Karsten is an event for me”. Reviewer GUY HAWORTH brings you an in-depth look at this essential endgame extravaganza replete with illuminating examples.

Let endgame expert Dr Karsten Müller show and explain the finesses of the world champions. Although they had different styles each and every one of them played the endgame exceptionally well, so take the opportunity to enjoy and learn from some of the best endgames in the history of chess.

In Chess Endgame News...

Review by Guy Haworth

‘UME’ will be eagerly snapped up by professional players but it is also accessible to club players and enthusiasts such as myself. This book combines the insight and enthusiasm of the well-known and prolific endgame expert with the technical precision of Yakov Konoval’s sub-8-man ‘DTC’ Depth to Conversion endgame tables. ‘Man and machine’ is an excellent combination and this is one of its finer feats of inexorable logic. It is both informative and entertaining, certainly a worthy successor to Understanding Rook Endgames (Müller and Konoval, 2016). The board has no queens or rooks but sports at least one minor piece on the board: no side has more than one. The core domain ranges from KNKP to KXPPKX¢P — where X and X¢ are B, N or P.

endgameDemis Hassabis once opined (Sadler and Regan, 2019) that it is “the exquisite balance of the bishop and knight across the set of all positions, despite their vastly different mobility, that creates the dynamic tension in the game”. Here, the book builds to Chapter 6, some 40% of the whole, where finally, spiritual and temporal, bishop and knight, face off against each other. In preparation, we study the single knight against foot soldiers (ch. 1), the joust of knight against knight (ch. 2), the sole bishop (ch. 3) and the ecclesiastical struggle of bishop against bishop, whether in the same church on the same-colour squares (ch. 4) or not (ch. 5). The drawish opposite-coloured bishop situations, incidentally, seem to be enjoyed by AlphaZero.

The finer structure is clear, once laid out, but it takes a mathematical, rigorous and perceptive mind like Karsten’s to realize what that structure should be. Beyond the focusing on specific endgames, the key characteristics and themes of each subdomain are defined and guide one’s understanding. Pawns may be on specific files, may or may not be close, connected or ‘passed’, a minor piece may (not) have the advantage, bishops do (not) control the queening square etc. The contents list could perhaps have usefully gone one or two levels deeper than the chapter headings.

The many examples — over 500 of them — tend to focus on but are not limited to sub-8-man positions. Here, you will find the skill and artistry of many World Champions on display and sometimes they face each other: only Tigran Petrosian is missing from the line of succession. Here are a couple of the famous and/or complex gems.

 
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Finally we start earlier in the most famous endgame of the type:
29...Bxh2? why Fischer captured this poisoned pawn has remained a mystery to this day. The bishop endgame is completely drawn and now there are two results a draw or a win for White. He must have miscalculated a line, which is a very rare occurance in his games. 30.g3 h5 31.Ke2 h4 32.Kf3 Ke7 probably Fischer had missed that after 32...h3 33.Kg4 Bg1 34.Kxh3 Bxf2 White has 35.Bd2! trapping his bishop 33.Kg2 hxg3 34.fxg3 Bxg3 35.Kxg3 Kd6 36.a4 There was a long debate, if White can win here with 36.Kg4!? Ke5 37.Kh5 but Jonathan Speelman (Analysing the Endgame (1981), pp.81-82) shows that Ke4‼
draws: 38.Kg6 38.a4 f5 39.Kg6 e5 40.Kxg7 f4 41.exf4 exf4 42.Bd2 Kd3 43.Be1 Kc4 44.Kf8 Kb3 45.a5 b6!= (Sullivan) 38...e5 39.Kxg7 f5 40.Kf6 f4 41.exf4 exf4 42.Bd2 f3 43.Be1 Kd5 44.Ke7 Kc4 45.a4 b6! 46.Kd6 Kb3 47.Kd5 Kxa4 48.Kc4=
36...Kd5 37.Ba3 Ke4 38.Bc5 a6 39.b6
39...f5? the final mistake Black can draw with 39...e5 40.Kg4 g6 41.a5 41.Kg3 Kd3= (Timman) 41...Kd5 42.Be7 f5+ 43.Kg5 f4= (Byrne) due to 44.exf4 exf4 45.Kxf4 Ke6 46.Bh4 Kd7 47.Kg5 Kc8 48.Kxg6 Kd7 with a fortress 40.Kh4 f4 40...Kd5 is more tenacious: 41.Bb4! Ke4 42.Bd2 Kd3 43.Bc1 Kc2 44.Ba3 Kd3 45.Bc5 Kc4 46.Bd6! Kasparov ends here. Sullivan continues the line with Kd5 47.Bf4! e5 48.Bh2 f4 49.exf4 exf4 50.Kg4! 50.Bxf4? Kc5= 50...Kc5 51.Bg1+ Kb4 52.Kxf4 Kxa4 53.Ke5 Kb4 54.Kd6 a5 55.Kc7 a4 56.Kxb7+- 41.exf4 the sealed move. Now it is clear that White will win Kxf4 42.Kh5! Kf5 43.Be3 Ke4 44.Bf2 Kf5 45.Bh4 e5 46.Bg5 e4 47.Be3 Kf6 48.Kg4 Ke5 49.Kg5 Kd5 50.Kf5 a5 51.Bf2 g5 52.Kxg5 Kc4 53.Kf5 Kb4 54.Kxe4 Kxa4 55.Kd5 Kb5 56.Kd6
1–0
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
03.77 Spassky,B2660Fischer,B27851–01972E56Reykjavik Match 19721
06.191 Karpov-Kasparov-1–01984World Championship Moscow9

The corpus of didactic positions and chess studies also provides material. Some 340 ‘game’ exercises and 46 pages of solutions also help to check our under­stand­ing of the various points made. Here's a small selection for the reader.

You can take a stab at the positions on the diagrams, and then review the solutions in the full-sized game viewer below. Some broad hints are provided to the exercises and studies if you click or tap the hint button (life preserver icon).

 
Tomazini vs Wiesinger (2015)
Black to move and draw
 
Galojan vs Muzychuk (2011)
White to move and draw
 
 
Averbakh's barrier (1969)
Black to move and draw
 
Savina vs Gvetadze (2015)
Black to move and draw (Capablanca's Rule)
 
 
Study by Reti (1924)
White to move
 
Study by Nunn (2013)
White to move
 
 
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How to defend with Black? 74...Nh4+? The king must lend a helping hand with 74...Kd6! 75.h6 Ne5 76.h7 Nf7 77.Kf6 Nh8
and now Black's king is close enough due to 78.Kg7 Ke7 79.Kxh8 Kf7 stalemate
75.Kg5 75.Kf6!?+- The king is safe from a knight check. 75...Nf3+ 76.Kf6 Nh2 77.Kf5 Nf1 78.h6 Ng3+ 79.Kg6
1–0
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
E01.01 Tomazini,Z2346Wiesinger,R22091–02015C45AUT-chT2M 14157.3
E05.01 Galojan,L2377Muzychuk,M24730–12011A851 24 4836 EU-ch (Women)9
03.47 Averbakh's barrier--½–½1969
04.38 Savina,A2417Gvetadze,S23191–02015A5616th ch-EUR Indiv w 20154.14
01.58 Reti,M--1–0192430 16648 ?
04.36B Study by GM John Nunn--1–02013The Problemist, Vol 24, No5

Chapter 8 merely picks up on a few studies which have been cooked or corrected en passant. Chapter 7 touches on some opportunities missed by chess engines, ‘limited’ or at least challenged as they currently are by ‘the curse of the knight’ zugzwang positions, their search-horizons and by ‘only’ having 6-man ‘EGT’ endgame tables. The now prominent Chiron (#8), Fire (#23), Houdini, (#5/26), Rybka (#21), Komodo (#6/7/12), Shredder (#10/11) and Stockfish (#16/18) all have their moments in the shade, but they are older, wiser and better informed now.

Nearly forty ‘longest-DTC wins’ show the full complexity of the various endgames, many of the lines being usefully commentated on. Endgame aficionados will also enjoy looking at the lines in the context of EGTs to metrics other than Konoval’s ‘DTC’ Depth to Conversion. The Lomonosov (2012) DTM(ate) EGTs are now joined by the equally extensive and popular ‘depth to plycount zeroing’ DTZ50 EGTs which take into account the 50-move rule (de Man et al, 2018). Deep lines to different depth metrics can eventually diverge as they are pulled in different directions by their specific objectives. For example, do the three frustrated wins (#2.47A KNPPknp, #3.66 KBPkppp and #6.178 KNPPknp) let go of their 50-move-rule defence because of the given DTC-centric lines? Do the DTM- and DTC-minimaxing lines diverge and if so, where? What can be learned at the branch-point? 

 
dtc/m/z = 219/253/3 ply
White to move
 
dtc/m/z = 203/263/4p
White to move

The maxDTC-deepest 'UME' endgames, both 1-0

Müller and Konoval have produced a definitive work here in UME, mastering a large subject with authority and organizing it so that it is more accessible to the greater chess community. The result is attractive, fascinating, instructive, enriching — entirely as one would expect from this team. It is a pleasure to see items of beautiful glassware being skilfully drawn from the silica of endgame data.


References

  • de Man, R., Fiekas, N. and Guo, B. (2018). https://tinyurl.com/icga007. Fiekas’ interface to ‘Syzygy formatted’ de Man sub-7-man and Guo 7-man DTZ50² EGTs.
  • Haworth, G. McC. (2019). http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/82423/. This item plus supplementary data on content, longest wins etc.
  • Lomonosov (2012). http://tb7.chessok.com/. Query interface to sub-8-man DTM EGTs.
  • Müller, K. and Konoval, Y. (2016). Understanding Rook Endgames. Gambit.
  • Müller, K. and Konoval, Y. (2019). Understanding Minor Piece Endgames. Russell Enterprises.
  • Sadler, M. and Regan, N. (2019). Game Changer. New in Chess.

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