Endgame Studies News Today

Tim Krabbé's book "Schaakkuriosa" showed a study by the Bulgarian chess composer I. Ionchev, flawed but nevertheless interesting. Yours truly tried to follow in his footsteps. Nadareishvili explored the same concept, and it might be unfair to associate the name with Ionchev as he was neither the first, the last, nor the most important one to show it - only the most famous. | Photo: Pixabay

In this second part of an "understanding chess composition competition" trilogy, Study of the Month columnist SIEGFRIED HORNECKER surveys the official FIDE Album, an anthology of the best chess compositions. His selections include a study co-composed by Levon Aronian. | Photo: Arves.org

Endgame studies sometimes go to extremes, e.g. by demonstrating a win in 584(!) moves in a study, in which King, Rook, two Bishops (standing on the same colour), and pawn fight against King, Queen and Pawn. But are these and similar studies relevant for the theory of the endgame or practical games? It depends. Siegfried Hornecker takes a closer look.

€29.90 As seen in Douglas Adams’ masterpiece A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or in Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question, computers, given enough time, might be able to solve every question. Not always will two words — “Fiat Lux” — be the outcome of their research, nor the answer to life, the universe and everything, however, arguments are made that computers might technically be able to give the solution to chess problems, yet lack what a human would be able ...