1/17/2012 – "If I have to tell you that Karsten Müller is
one of the very top endgame analysts of our time, I would first have to ask
what planet you have been living on for the past fifteen years," Steven
B. Dowd in Chess Cafe. "This trainer
is one of his best, taking a topic not often explored in endgame texts: how
rooks and minor pieces work together." He gives the DVD full six stars
in his product review.
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Karsten
Müller – Chess Endgames 9
By Steven B. Dowd
Chess Endgames 9, Rook and Minor Piece (DVD), Karsten Müller,
ChessBase, Playing Time: 7 hours 38 minutes $34.95 (ChessCafe Price: $28.95)
If I have to take the time to convince you that Karsten Müller is one
of the very top endgame analysts of our time, I would first have to ask what
planet you have been living on for the past fifteen years. The German grandmaster
consistently produces excellent endgame analysis, often finding obscure games
to analyze – he either has a prodigious memory or the best endgame database
in the world, to say nothing of his uncanny ability to analyze the most difficult
of endings.
This trainer is one of his best, taking a topic not often explored in endgame
texts: how rooks and minor pieces work together – or in many cases, how
they do not. As with any endgame study, seeing how pieces work together will
improve your middlegame and opening skills, as well as improve your knowledge
of that particular endgame.
There are five chapters to this DVD, the first is rook and knight versus rook
and knight, with twenty-one examples, the second is rooks and opposite-colored
bishops, with fourteen examples, the third is rooks and same-colored bishops
(although it is erroneously given the same title as the second chapter), with
ten examples, the fourth, what is called the "Fischer endgame" where
the bishop dominates the knight, with fourteen examples, and finally, what Müller
has named the "Andersson endgame" in honor of the Swedish grandmaster,
who handles knights like no other, with eleven examples.
The stem game for the fourth chapter is the famous Fischer-Taimanov match game,
and if you haven't studied it before, Müller's smooth analysis should be
your introduction. I've studied this game over the years, many times, and I
learned a few new things about it from Müller. One chapter I particularly
enjoyed was on opposite-colored bishops. Of course, with a rook on board, there
are definite winning chances, many of them tactical, and I have always enjoyed
playing opposite-colored bishop endgames anyway, because so many of my opponents
seem to assume they are "automatic" draws.
Müller presents well in English. Some of his pronunciations are a bit
odd (the way he says "attacker" always throws me) and he is sometimes
given to long pauses, probably to think out what he wants to say, but this is
minor, and does not detract. He uses nice snappy titles for his examples, which
I always find helps me to remember them later. Some on this DVD include, "The
bishop shoots in the air," "Shirov fails to set the board on fire,"
and the follow-up, "He does better in the second (example)," and,
"To exchange or not to exchange, that is the question."
Consider this game fragment. Can you see, as Müller puts it, how "A
light initiative weighs heavily," and Smyslov forced Benko (two other great
endgames experts to capitulate in only eighteen more moves? How many of you
would offer a draw here? Yet it only took two mistakes by Benko, and the game
was over. Smsylov first exploited Black's undeveloped and then off-side knight
to win; I'll let you either work out how or let you buy the trainer to see!
Smyslov – Benko, Monte Carlo, 1969
As I stated earlier, the section on opposite-colored bishops and rooks was
one of my favorites. Look at how Black's light-squared weaknesses in this game
led to his defeat. But how, you say? Isn't the rule that only one pawn up with
"opposites" is a draw?
Finally, a short example of the "Andersson endgame." I chose this
one because I once watch Andersson on the ICC blithely trade off his bishop(s)
for a knight(s) in game after game. (A bishop it looked to me like he needed
sorely for defense!) Then, with apparent ease, he showed the superiority of
the knight in those positions. His opponent here is another world-class endgame
expert. You would expect that with this material, only a pawn down, Black might
have drawing chances. But Timman's light-squared bishop is ineffective as a
defender or attacker of the dark squares, and serves as little more than a target
for the rook.
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