Studies for Practical Players: Book 2: Improving Important Endgame Concepts

by Oleg Pervakov, Mark Dvoretsky, Garry Kasparov (Foreword by)

Overview

Develop Imaginative and Preventive Thinking

Nowadays, chessplayers spend almost all their free time preparing openings, and rarely spend the time necessary to perfect the vitally important technique of calculating. Regular training in solving and playing out endgames studies is a good recipe for eliminating that shortcoming.

This book – the sequel to Studies for Practical Players released over a decade ago – is mostly aimed at practical players who wish to improve their chess skills by developing imaginative and preventive thinking, while perfecting calculation of variations and knowledge of basic endings. In addition, this work will certainly be appreciated by every lover of beauty, logic and paradoxicality of the game.

The creative collaboration between a famous trainer with a world-renowned name and a study composer who has earned the title of International Grandmaster of Composition will give chessplayers the best of both worlds: The elegance of endgame studies and the practical application of endgame theory.

[Endgame studies] are an excellent training tool ... everything is as close to battlefield conditions as can be. Of course, the contents of the book are not nearly limited to studies by one author. It also includes wonderfully annotated creative works of many outstanding chess study composers and practical players. Outstanding! – From the Foreword by Garry Kasparov

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781949859805
Publisher:	Russell Enterprises, Incorporated
Publication date:	03/10/2024
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Oleg Pervakov is a Grandmaster of Endgame Composition and one of the most creative endgame composers in the world today.

Mark Dvoretsky (1947-2016) was considered the premier chess trainer in his time.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1. Study-Like Ideas And Combinations

Any chessplayer would easily recall games in which brilliant ideas and combinations have been carried out (or, au contraire, missed). Not every such episode can be called “study-like,” as this epithet expresses the highest possible aesthetic evaluation, and combinations, even the most beautiful ones, are usually more or less standard. We can easily remember similar examples.

Originality is the most important aesthetic factor for the evaluation of studies. Also in practical games, what surprises and delights us most of all is, probably, ideas – if not really complex at all, but unusual; if not one-hundred-percent original (I doubt that those ones exist now), but at least rare. Obviously, such evaluation of levels of originality is to a certain degree subjective.

Another study-like aesthetic criterion, efficiency, cannot be applied to practical play. Any study composer always removes pieces and pawns that are not necessary for the expression of his ideas, but a chessplayer has to deal with material that is present on the board. He cannot improve a position in order to obtain greater aesthetic effect.

But a factor such as uniqueness of solution, which is necessary for studies, has a significant influence on the aesthetic evaluation of practical fragments as well.

Levitsky-Marshall
Breslau 1912

[DIAGRAM]

After Frank Marshall’s amazing shot 23...Qg3!!, his opponent immediately resigned. What prevents us from enjoying it to the full is the fact that Black has an extra piece, which he retains after various retreats of the queen, including 22...Qe3!?.

The following example can be found in many books.

Koskinen-Kasanen
Helsinki 1967

[DIAGRAM]

After 1...Qxb4+!! 2.Bxb4 Rd2!!, White is unavoidably mated, 3.Qxd2 (the capture of any other piece is met with 3...axb4#) 3...Nc2+ 4.Qxc2 axb4#.

From an interesting book Magical Positions by Czech trainer Michal Konopka, we learn that, almost certainly, this ending never really occurred. It was composed and published by Juha Kasanen, who was most probably building on some real game. In our opinion, his composition is not very good.

If we notice that Black wins easily after 1...axb4+ (1...Nd1, as well as a few other moves, also wins) 2.Bxb4 Rd7!, with a threat of 3...Ra7#, the spectacular combination becomes much less impressive. On the only reply 3.b3, both 3...Nd1 and 3...c3 4.Qxc3 Rxb4 are good.