Many significant chess treatises, beginning with the earliest works, have included some analysis of the endgame. Lucena's book (c. 1497) concluded with 150 examples of endgames and chess problems. The second edition (1777) of Philidor's Analyse du jeu des Échecs devoted 75 pages of analysis to various endgames. These included a number of theoretically important endings, such as rook and bishop versus rook, queen versus rook, queen versus rook and pawn, and rook and pawn versus rook. Certain positions in the endings of rook and bishop versus rook, rook and pawn versus rook, and queen versus rook have all become known as Philidor's position. Philidor concluded his book with two pages of (in the English translation), "Observations on the ends of parties", in which he set forth certain general principles about endings, such as that: "Two knights alone cannot mate.", the ending with a bishop and rook pawn whose queening square is on the opposite color from the bishop is drawn, and a queen beats a bishop and knight. Staunton's The Chess-Player's Handbook, originally published in 1847, included almost 100 pages of analysis of endgames. In 1941 Reuben Fine published his monumental 573-page treatise Basic Chess Endings, the first attempt at a comprehensive treatise on the endgame. A new edition, revised by Pal Benko, was published in 2003. Soviet writers published an important series of books on specific endings: Rook Endings by Grigory Levenfish and Vasily Smyslov, Pawn Endings by Yuri Averbakh and I. Maizelis, Queen and Pawn Endings by Averbakh, Bishop Endings by Averbakh, Knight Endings by Averbakh and Vitaly Chekhover, Bishop v. Knight Endings by Yuri Averbakh, Rook v. Minor Piece Endings by Averbakh,and Queen v. Rook/Minor Piece Endings by Averbakh, Chekhover, and V. Henkin. These books by Averbakh and others were collected into the five-volume Comprehensive Chess Endings in English.
In recent years, computer-generated endgame tablebases have revolutionized endgame theory, conclusively showing best play in many complicated endgames that had vexed human analysts for over a century, such as queen and pawn versus queen. They have also overturned human theoreticians' verdicts on a number of endgames, such as by proving that the two bishops versus knight ending, which had been thought drawn for over a century, is normally a win for the bishops (see Pawnless chess endgames#Minor pieces only and Chess endgame#Effect of tablebases on endgame theory). Several important works on the endgame have been published in recent years, among them Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual,Fundamental Chess Endings by Karsten Müller and Frank Lamprecht,Basic Endgames: 888 Theoretical Positions by Yuri Balashov and Eduard Prandstetter,hess Endgame Lessons by Benko, and Secrets of Rook Endingsand Secrets of Pawnless Endings by John Nunn.Some of these have been aided by analysis from endgame tablebases.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Endgame theory
Middlegame theory
Middlegame theory is considerably less developed than either opening theory or endgame theory. Watson writes, "Players wishing to study this area of the game have a limited and rather unsatisfactory range of resources from which to choose." Leading player and theorist Aron Nimzowitsch'sinfluential books My System (1925), Die Blockade (1925) (in German), and Chess Praxis (1936) were, and remain, among the most important works on the middlegame. In 1952, Fine published the 442-page The Middle Game in Chess, perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of the subject up until that time. The mid-20th century also saw the publication of The Middle Game, volumes 1 and 2, by former World Champion Max Euwe and Hans Kramer,and a series of books by the Czechoslovak-German grandmaster Luděk Pachman: three volumes of Complete Chess Strategy, Modern Chess Strategy, Modern Chess Tactics, and Attack and Defense in Modern Chess Tactics.In 1999, Watson's Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: Advances Since Nimzowitsch was published, in which Watson discusses the revolution in middlegame theory that has occurred since Nimzowitsch's time.There are also many books on specific aspects of the middlegame, such as The Art of Attack in Chess by Vladimir Vuković,[The Art of Sacrifice in Chess by Rudolf Spielmann,[The Art of the Checkmate by Georges Renaud and Victor Kahn, The Basis of Combination in Chess by J. du Mont, and The Art of Defense in Chess by Andrew Soltis.
Opening theory
The English master Howard Staunton, perhaps the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851,included over 300 pages of analysis of the openings in his 1847 treatise The Chess Player's Handbook.That work immediately became the standard reference work in English-speaking countries,and was reprinted 21 times by 1935. However, "as time passed a demand arose for more up-to-date works in English".Wilhelm Steinitz, the first World Champion, widely considered the "father of modern chess,"extensively analyzed various double king-pawn openings (beginning 1.e4 e5) in his book The Modern Chess Instructor, published in 1889 and 1895. Also in 1889, E. Freeborough and the Reverend C.E. Ranken published the first edition of Chess Openings Ancient and Modern; later editions were published in 1893, 1896, and 1910.In 1911, R.C. Griffith and J.H. White published the first edition of Modern Chess Openings. It is now the longest-published opening treatise in history; the fifteenth edition (commonly called MCO-15), by Grandmaster Nick de Firmian, was published in April 2008.
According to Hooper and Whyld, the various editions of Modern Chess Openings, the last edition of the Handbuch, and the fourth edition of Ludvig Collijn's Larobok (in Swedish) "were the popular reference sources for strong players between the two world wars."In 1937-39 former World Champion Max Euwe published a twelve-volume opening treatise, De theorie der schaakopeningen, in Dutch. It was later translated into other languages. In the late 1930s to early 1950s Reuben Fine, one of the world's strongest players,also become one of its leading theoreticians, publishing important works on the opening, middlegame, and endgame. These began with his revision of Modern Chess Openings, which was published in 1939.In 1943, he published Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, which sought to explain the principles underlying the openings.In 1948, he published his own opening treatise, Practical Chess Openings, a competitor to MCO.In 1964, International Master I.A. Horowitz published the 789-page tome Chess Openings: Theory and Practice, which in addition to opening analysis included a large number of illustrative games. In 1966, the first volume of Chess Informant was published in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, containing 466 annotated games from the leading chess tournaments and matches of the day. The hugely influential Chess Informant series has revolutionized opening theory. Its great innovation was that it expressed games in languageless figurine algebraic notation and annotated them using no words, but rather seventeen symbols, whose meanings were explained at the beginning of the book in six different languages. This enabled readers around the world to read the same games and annotations, thus greatly accelerating the dissemination of chess ideas and the development of opening theory. The editors of Chess Informant later introduced other publications using the same principle, such as the five-volume Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and Encyclopedia of Chess Endings treatises. Chess Informant was originally published twice a year, and since 1991 has been published thrice annually. Volume 100 was published in 2007.It now uses 57 symbols, explained in 10 languages, to annotate games (see punctuation (chess)), and is available in both print and electronic formats. In 2005, former World Champion Garry Kasparov wrote, "We are all Children of the Informant
In the 1990s and thereafter, the development of opening theory has been further accelerated by such innovations as extremely strong chess engines such as Fritz and Rybka, software such as ChessBase, and the sale of multi-million-game databases such as ChessBase's Mega 2008 database, with 3.8 million games.Today, the most important openings have been analyzed over 20 moves deep,sometimes well into the endgame,and it is not unusual for leading players to introduce theoretical novelties on move 25 or even later.
Thousands of books have been written on chess openings. These include both comprehensive openings encyclopedias such as the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and Modern Chess Openings; general treatises on how to play the opening such as Mastering the Chess Openings (in three volumes), by International Master John L. Watson;and myriad books on specific openings, such as Understanding the Grünfeldand Chess Explained: The Classical Sicilian."Books and monographs on openings are popular, and as they are thought to become out of date quickly there is a steady supply of new titles
Chess theory
In 1913, preeminent chess historian H.J.R. Murray wrote in his 900-page magnum opus A History of Chess that, "The game possesses a literature which in contents probably exceeds that of all other games combined." He estimated that at that time the "total number of books on chess, chess magazines, and newspapers devoting space regularly to the game probably exceeds 5,000". In 1949, B.H. Wood opined that the number had increased to about 20,000. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld wrote in 1992 that, "Since then there has been a steady increase year by year of the number of new chess publications. No one knows how many have been printed..." The world's largest chess library, the John G. White Collection at the Cleveland Public Library, contains over 32,000 chess books and serials, including over 6,000 bound volumes of chess periodicals. Chessplayers today also avail themselves of computer-based sources of information unimagined by Murray.As a result, today there is a vast body of theory concerning the opening and endgame phases of the game, and to a lesser extent the middlegame. Those who write about chess theory, who are often but not necessarily also eminent players, are referred to as "theorists" or "theoreticians"
Influence on chess
Staunton proposed and was the principal organizer of the first international chess tournament which proved that such events were possible, and which produced a clear consensus on who was the world's strongest player - Adolf Anderssen. All subsequent international tournaments took place in Great Britain until Paris 1867 Contemporaries, including Steinitz and Morphy, regarded Staunton's writings on chess openings as among the best of their time. Chess historians agree that his Chess-Player's Handbook (1847) immediately became the leading English-language chess text-book, and it went through twenty-one reprints by 1935. Around 1888 Staunton's Chess: Theory and Practice, published posthumously in 1876, was regarded as modern in most respects, but there was a growing need for more up-to-date analysis of openings. His obituary in The City of London Chess Magazine said, "... his literary labours are the basis upon which English Chess Society ... stands".
His play, however, had little influence on other players of the day. William Hartston explains that, "... his chess understanding was so far ahead of his time. A deep strategist living in an era when shallow tactics were still the rule, Staunton's conceptions could not be assimilated by his contemporaries." Staunton's style and the openings that accompanied it were eclipsed by the more directly aggressive styles of Anderssen and Morphy, which dominated chess from 1851 until Steinitz unveiled his positional approach in 1873. There is little evidence that Staunton had much direct influence on modern chess. Although he introduced the English Opening, it has been called "really a twentieth century invention" that only became fully respectable after future World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik began playing it in the 1930s. Similarly, although he was an early champion of the Sicilian Defense, which is today the most popular opening, and the most successful response to 1.e4, he seems to have had little influence on how the Sicilian is played today: he regarded it as a safe defensive line, while it is now treated as a vigorous but slightly risky counter-attack. On the other hand, Raymond Keene wrote that "Taimanov revived some old, forgotten ideas of Staunton ..." in the Sicilian. Staunton and modern GMs agree that Black gets a good game after 1.d4 f5 2.h3 Nf6 3.g4 d5! Staunton introduced the Staunton Gambit against the Dutch Defense (1.d4 f5 2.e4!?). Although it was once a feared attacking line it has been out of favor since the mid-1920s and is thought to "offer White equality at best”.Staunton also introduced a different gambit approach to the Dutch, 2.h3 followed by g4. In 1979 Viktor Korchnoi, one of the world's leading players, successfully introduced this line into top-class competition, but later authorities concluded, as Staunton had, that Black gets a good game with 2...Nf6 3.g4 d5!Staunton also advocated the Ponziani Opening 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.c3, which was often called "Staunton's Opening".It is rarely played today because it allows Black to choose between a sharp counter-attack and a safe line that usually leads to a draw.
Personality
Staunton's virtues and vices were both on a large scale. Former World Champion Kasparov commented that Staunton "founded and edited the magazine Chess Player's Chronicle ... wrote a chess column (1845-1874), studied opening theory ... published four remarkable books ... endorsed the famous 'Staunton pieces' ... organized the first international chess tournament in history ..." However British International Master William Hartston wrote that Staunton's many achievements were done "with the full weight of an arrogant and pompous nature which has scarcely been matched in the history of the game." Even contemporaries sympathetic to Staunton admitted that he could be spiteful in response to unexpected defeats, and to proposals or arguments that he considered ill-founded or malicious. Staunton had a highly volatile relationship with George Walker, the founder of the London Chess Club, a dedicated popularizer of chess and one of Staunton's earliest supporters.[
Staunton's enemies gave as good as they got. Chess journalism could be a bruising business in those days, even when Staunton was not involved. However it does seem that Staunton was involved in more than his fair share of chess disputes. H.J.R. Murray suggested that these frequent wars of words may have originated from leading players' and commentators' jealousy over Staunton's unexpected rise to the top in the early 1840s, and from snobbish disdain about his humble and possibly illegitimate birth. Saidy and Lessing wrote that, "He can hardly be blamed if the struggles and privations of his youth warped his character so that he became a jealous, suspicious, and vitriolic man." On the other hand Staunton's often-criticized description of Anderssen as Germany's second best player, after Anderssen had won the 1851 London International tournament, may have been reasonable on the basis of what is now known about von der Lasa's skill. Staunton was sometimes an objective chess commentator: a large percentage of his 1860 book Chess Praxis was devoted to Morphy's games, which he praised highly; and in The Chess-Player's Companion (1849) Staunton sometimes criticized his own play, and presented a few of his losses. Staunton showed excellent management skills in building the team to organize the London International tournament of 1851, and determination and resourcefulness in overcoming the difficulties of getting enough competitors.He also maintained good working relationships with important players and enthusiasts, for example: Popert and Cochrane helped him to prepare for his second match against Saint-Amant; Captain Evans agreed to be one of his seconds in that match and later helped Staunton to organize the 1845 telegraphic match; the Calcutta Chess Club contributed £100 to help finance the London International Tournament in 1851, and in addition its principal officers Cochrane and T.C. Morton made two of the four largest personal contributions; Staunton corresponded with von der Lasa for over 30 years, although they only met once; Staunton's last letter to von der Lasa, November 1873, expressed his sorrow at the deaths of various masters and enthusiasts, including Saint-Amant. In conversation Staunton was charming and witty. Despite the disappointing way in which his playing career ended, Staunton continued to write with enthusiasm about the progress of new technologies, players and developments in chess theory. At the time of his death his last book, Chess: Theory and Practice, was sufficiently complete to be published posthumously in 1876, and it was described as up-to-date fourteen years after his death.