iam sure older playersbenefited from adjoumentsin endgames?

[Ian Lamb]

younger players dont have a chance to play adjourments these days and i think when there a slow time control it shows what your views please? I think younger player are lot stronger in the opening. but endgame i dont think there as good as the older Generation . I also think that due to the speed of chess these days with the play getting faster and faster.

[Roger de Coverly]

I think younger player are lot stronger in the opening. but endgame i dont think there as good as the older Generation .

It might depend how you define "younger" and "older".

Players of the adjudication generation who never took a game of chess past move 36 have limited endgame experience. Rapidplays require you to play endgames and since their growth in the 1970s, I'd suggest that the standard of practical endings has improved somewhat. This includes how to defend the "loss on adjudication" to create difficulties and draw.

[Ian Lamb]

i define this sort of postions who players like yourself use to play Ajourments all the time at hastings paington etc. Where the game was stopped and you study the postions with a suitcase of books to help you play the ajourments. From 6 till 8 then play for a couple of hours then adjourn again and play in the morning this must help improve endgames?.or top level players would pass it to there second and be told in the morning what they had to do. if the Ajourment was over night.

[John Moore]

You have to bear in mind that pubs shut at 11.00pm (or at least were supposed to) when adjournments were around - and Fritz was just the name of that German who always played at Hastings. So quite a few players used the two hours adjournment session as an opportunity to have a couple of pints with a pocket set to hand - or six pints and analyse in your head.

I should think that Dundee 1993 was the last British with 40 moves in 150 minutes and adjournments. I played Alan Spice in round 9. We reached move 40, a move was sealed and we both left the tournament hall by different doors - only to meet five minutes later at the bar of the nearest hostelry.

[Roger de Coverly]

I should think that Dundee 1993 was the last British with 40 moves in 150 minutes and adjournments.

Norwich 1994 was 40/2 and 20/1 plus either 30 or 60 minutes. I can remember two of my games going into the last 5 minutes. Seven hours playing is not the best preparation for 5-minute chess !

At around this time, this became the official FIDE move rate so Hastings and other international events dropped adjournments. They lingered on in some of the more domestic events for a while. Southend may have been one of he last to abandon them.

[E Michael White]

Players of the adjudication generation who never took a game of chess past move 36 have limited endgame experience. Rapidplays require you to play endgames and since their growth in the 1970s, I'd suggest that the standard of practical endings has improved somewhat

The different effects adjud/adjou/rapid have on ending ability have long been overplayed. Appeals against adjudication are now a lost form of endings self-education. When composing an appeal the player has more time to consult books, discuss with team members, understand the principles and may receive some feedback from the appeal adjudicator.

[Stewart Reuben]

Adjudications (pardon me for using a swear word) held back English chess developing for many years. One reason for the English chess explosion was doing away with adjudications in tournaments by 1975. Why should somebody study the endgame when they never had to play one?
Adjournments really became unsustainable with the growth of computers. You should have heard Jon Speelman's opinions of them and the wear and tear on nerves in the 'resting' time.
The London League still has the option of adjournment in the first division if on player wants it. I always want it. I am simply too old to play a quickplay finish without a delay mode. The committee won't introduce this option, although it would be unlikely to add more than 5 minutes to the playing session.
Stewart Reuben

[Ian Thompson]

Southend may have been one of he last to abandon them.

Paignton may have been one of the last as well. I had an adjournment last time I played there in 1999.

[E Michael White]

Rapidplays require you to play endgames and since their growth in the 1970s, I'd suggest that the standard of practical endings has improved somewhat.

I dont believe playing endings quickly improves a players endgame standard. Hebden missed a draw on move 48 v Howell in the British as I expect everyone knows but this could only have been a result of time pressure. The best way to improve at endings as said before is to appeal against adjudications. Ideally an adjudicator should be wrong 20% of the time, which would allow most league players 1 appeal per season and the opportunity to see 4 or 5 appeals for their other team members. Since adjudications were frowned upon it has made arbiters lives easier at the cost of this valuable training for players.

[Paul McKeown]

Ideally an adjudicator should be wrong 20% of the time

wha....?



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unbelievable....

[Richard Bates]

The London League still has the option of adjournment in the first division if on player wants it.

Only on even numbered boards (unless the rules have reverted).

[Stewart Reuben]

Richard is right. But you just have toe get yourself onto an even numbered board if you want adjournments, odd numbered if you want a quickplay finish and either if you don't mind. Then the captain has to do a complex juggling act and we know there are those in chess who prefer complex rules.

E Michael White is totally wrong on this occasion. Doing theoretical appeals against adjudications had very limited value. Perhaps 1 in 100 games. I had experience as a player, arbiter and adjudicator. Now with Fritz or Rybka it would probably come down to 1 in 1000. Try the endgame bishop and knight against bare king. I saw this done by Craig Pritchett against Jimmy Adams with only 30 seconds remaining on his clock. He knew he might have to play out this endgame and had studies it. Jimmy played badly, always making the obvious move towards the centre. This is not optimal.
Knowing you will have to play out the endgame means you have to study the pawn structures well in advance.
Many games were adjudicated in less than 40 moves. What absolutely nonsense.
Stewart Reuben

[Mike Gunn]

I have had adjourned games at the British, at Hastings and at the Berks & Bucks congress all within the last 10 years (albeit all these games were in lower sections).

[E Michael White]

Try the endgame bishop and knight against bare king

The difficulty of this ending is exaggerated.

As you know, there is a bit more to being proficient at endings than learning a few elementary mates and then acting like a performing monkey churning out the method at the end of a rapidplay.

I saw Polugaevsky I think it was, complete K+B+N inside 2 mins. Subsequently I showed some juniors aged about 12 how to do it and they could all complete it within 2 mins on a clock along with 30 secs for K+R and 60 sec for K+2B. but this doesnt show you how to identify winning chances with opposite coloured bishops or play with a B + Ps v N + Ps etc

[JustinHorton]

It's true it's not so difficult when you know it, but doing it within fifty moves when you don't know it has proven too tough for many players. I was taught it, by the way, by Nigel Povah in a Hertfordshire juniors training school more than twenty-five years ago. I've never had the chance to use it, though I have lost the ending!

Does it come up more in practice than king and two bishops against king? I certainly get that impression.