Endgame Ahoy!
A couple of members were struck by Simon's discussion of
the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation
during his talk about King and Pawn
endgames. That's the best example of endgame thinking arising
in the opening, but it's not the only one.
There are endgame openings, where the queens come off early and the players forget about mating attacks, as recommended by Edmar Mednis. There is one more opening where we see an early queen swap: Lasker's Petroff exchange variation of the Petroff. Far from choosing a drawing variation, Lasker played it to win against selected opponents, like Frank Marshall who might be expected to over-egg it. One simple win from him was:
Much more commonly, we see endgame thinking arise in
games where there is a pawn
structure which will definitely get
better and better for one side as we approach the endgame -- a familiar
example is the Isolated Queen's Pawn.
"Before the endgame, the gods have placed the middlegame." -- Tarrasch. Couldn't agree more, but accepting a pawn weakness for attacking chances immediately gives your opponent a winning plan, namely, survive, swap and win the endgame ...
I've found a comparable example from the French Defence ...
, and was immediately reminded of the same sort of issue with the Backward Pawn you get in the same opening ...
The minority attack in the Queen's Gambit Declined Exchange Varation is all about saddling Black with a weakness that will persist into the endgame:
In the games of Rubinstein and Capablanca we often see opponents lured into losing endgames, lost because of weaknesses acquired, if not in the opening, then certainly long ago; I gave a couple of examples...
...a couple of sessions ago, and offer today another from Rubinstein ...
P.S. The famous Flohr-Capablanca game is here:
.thumbnail.JPG "Chess Set for Makruk (Thai or Cambodian Chess)")
.thumbnail.jpg "3D Chinese Chess Set (detail)")
.thumbnail.jpg "Dolls House Chess Set (magnetic)")
.thumbnail.jpg "South American Chess Set (rear)")
.thumbnail.jpg "Chinese Chess Set (2D)")
