Keene on Carlsen

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Was reading the Times chess column for this Friday (29 June 2012) and Keene featured Carlsen's win against Radjabov, quoting former Irish champion Nick Patterson's opinion that "Carlsen has a claim to be the best endgame player in history".

As a brief aside, I'd not heard of Patterson before (Nicholas J. Patterson), but found the following of interest:

http://www.icu.ie/articles/display.php?id=70
http://www.irlchess.com/castlebar1969_a ... r1969.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/scien ... wanted=all

(the latter article is particularly interesting, with a Turing connection)

Anyway, Keene went on to say that Carlsen is "a superb technician and psychologist in the style of Emanuel Lasker". The key (as Keene puts it) being the difference between 'sterile equality' and 'dynamic and finely-tuned equality'. It is an argument that is hard to rebut, and one that I think most would agree with. Is that the future of chess or will most future grandmasters struggle to adopt that style of play?

I would add that Carlsen seems to also have a big advantage in tablebase-type positions, as he seems to be able to play these positions near-faultlessly (there was some quote in a biography somewhere about photographic memory/recall, and there are various discussions about this out there). Do a lot of top chess players have this type of recall (Fischer was said to be able to remember every game he had played), or is this relatively rare?

The comparison with Lasker was interesting, though. When making superlative comparisons on endgame play, people often turn to Karpov and use the adjective Karpovian. What are the differences that would make a comparison with Lasker more suitable than with Karpov (or indeed other great endgame players)?

Keene also said that all games from the Tal Memorial are "available from The Times twitter feed". I've not looked, but is that worth a look and how do you use twitter to commentate on chess games? Is it as infeasible as it sounds, or does that really work?

[Jonathan Bryant]

... how do you use twitter to commentate on chess games?

You link to chessgames.com

It would be interesting to know who has a financial interest in chessgames.com wouldn't it?


Anyway, if you haven't looked at The Times twitter feed you really should. I'd say it's probably the one 'essential' feed in all of chess - although, to borrow a phrase from myself, it's best approached with caution.

[Paul McKeown]

Anyway, if you haven't looked at The Times twitter feed you really should. I'd say it's probably the one 'essential' feed in all of chess

What is the essential need that a chess Twitter feed fulfils? Up to the minute inane blitherings?

Isn't TWIC sufficiently up to the week for yer actual chess? Or ecforum even more up to date on local issues?

[Roger de Coverly]

It would be interesting to know who has a financial interest in chessgames.com wouldn't it?

This is what they say about themselves

Who is Chessgames.com?

Chessgames.com is the kibitzers. Without them, we'd be nothing.

The software and conceptual design that makes this possible is a combined effort among several south Florida chessplayers, including Daniel Freeman, Alberto Artidiello, and the talented staff at 20/20 Technologies.

The site has an archive of many of Keene's games with the annotations published at the time attached to some of them. There are a number of comments under his name as well.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Tsk. I knew I shouldn't have mentioned Twitter! Any opinions on comparison between the styles of Lasker, Karpov (and others) and Carlsen? And the more I read about Patterson, the more I wonder how many other high-flyers out there turned away from chess and forged careers elsewhere.

[Nick Ivell]

I was impressed with Carlsen - Tomashevsky at the recent Tal Memorial. He almost won an ending which was frankly sterile. Full marks to Tomashevsky for holding it; I know I wouldn't have done! Ok, Carlsen had bishop v knight with play on both sides of the board, but this advantage seemed merely nominal. In fact, am I right in recalling that some of the Gelfand - Anand games were agreed drawn with just such a nominal advantage?

Keene may be right (he is allowed to be occasionally). I have never seen a better player of the endgame.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Tsk. I knew I shouldn't have mentioned Twitter!

Talking about Carlsen's endgame prowess, then, well of course he has a claim. He's the top-rated player in an era when standards are higher than ever.

How to compare endgame ability with modern time controls over the old schedule though?

[JustinHorton]

The thing about Ray's Twitter feed is that it some ways it's quintessential Ray.

a. It's no work at all to write it (maximum 140 characters).
b. You can borrow all sorts of stuff off other people (retweets).
c. Endless opportunities for mutual backscratching (I retweet you, you retweet me).

"Available from the Times Twitter feed", my backside. But that's Ray.

[Jonathan Bryant]

To be fair to RDK, amidst the guff there are also important moments.

Off the top of my head I can think of three important stories for British Chess in the last year or so that first appeared on the Times Twitter feed:-


1. RDK to appear at the Opening Ceremony of the 2011 British Championships
2. CJ "banned" from the closing ceremony (Yes, I know that wasn't the end of it, by a long chalk, but I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that it was a significant moment and Ray was the first to bring it to our attention).
3. Gawain Jones to play at the 2012 London Chess Classic.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Tsk. I knew I shouldn't have mentioned Twitter!

Talking about Carlsen's endgame prowess, then, well of course he has a claim. He's the top-rated player in an era when standards are higher than ever.

How to compare endgame ability with modern time controls over the old schedule though?

Difficult, but not impossible. You also need to look at the late middle-game play as well, as that is just as important in terms of setting up some of the endgames that result. What you do need to be aware of with older games is when moves were sealed. Possibly some sealed positions would allow some players the time to get a deeper understanding of the position. There is also the distinction between positional play and calculation, which is still present in some endgame positions where long forcing calculations are still needed. Who are the other chess players from history or now who are considered great endgame players?

[Roger de Coverly]

Who are the other chess players from history or now who are considered great endgame players?

Capablanca is always quoted. Fischer commented that he was not greatly impressed by Capa's technical skill, it was rather more that he could spot the potential for a winning endgame earlier in the game than his opponents and play the middle game with that objective in mind.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Difficult, but not impossible ... Who are the other chess players from history or now who are considered great endgame players?

The trouble is that when you're not comparing like with like you'll always come up against subjective judgement calls that not all of us will share. That makes this sort of exercise interesting/pointless depending on your point of view (although I always tend towards the interesting option, in that regard).

E.g. do we judge people's ability by the standard of the day or by objective truth. Both have merit and neither is 'wrong' as such. Just different.


As for great endgame players, Rubenstein must be worth a mention. I'm stealing that opinion from Marin's Learn from the Legends, of course.

[E Michael White]

As a brief aside, I'd not heard of Patterson before (Nicholas J. Patterson), but found the following of interest:

http://www.icu.ie/articles/display.php?id=70
http://www.irlchess.com/castlebar1969_a ... r1969.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/scien ... wanted=all

Chris, you missed out this one with a PKC link.
http://cryptome.org/ukpk-alt.htm

[JustinHorton]

Re: Patterson, this is his game against Gheorghiu.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

As a brief aside, I'd not heard of Patterson before (Nicholas J. Patterson), but found the following of interest:

http://www.icu.ie/articles/display.php?id=70
http://www.irlchess.com/castlebar1969_a ... r1969.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/scien ... wanted=all

Chris, you missed out this one with a PKC link.
http://cryptome.org/ukpk-alt.htm

Thanks for that. John Saunders blogged about this a few years ago:

http://johnchess.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10 ... world.html

Leads to the same NYT article, but same thoughts I had about how some chess players end up in other careers (what John said was "a chessplayer who has left the game, gone away - and is now quietly running the world").

Interesting page on chess and mathematics here:

http://www.permutationpuzzles.org/chess/math_chess.html

Patterson is there along with many others, several very obscure. One has the same surname as me: Martin Kreuzer. I'd seen him on the FIDE rating lists when looking myself up, and realised he was a strong chess player, but not realised that he was a mathematician.