IMJohnCox wrote on 02/13/07 at 10:54:51:


That matches my experience too, even the R v P one where my opponent got a draw by promoting to a Knight which I hadn't considered when I went into the line.

I've been on the wrong side of R+B vs R and lost it. I looked up the defensive technique afterwards, but might have to wait another 10 years for it to come up again.

I've studied endings quite a lot, and I know I throw away a lot of points through poor ending play but it seems to be done before I get to these theoretical positions. 

In tournaments, often there is one game left with lots of specators and I've seen these theortetical postions come up and seen them misplayed (e.g. a 2000+ rated play who didn't know how to build a bridge) and have thought I'd hate to be in that position, so I think studying them is more for psychological comfort rather than practical use. Hmm, I kind of think that's the same with studying openings.

There are some endgame specialists, but it seems even GMs make a lot of mistakes in endings, and even in their analysis of them, so there's hope for us all.

I have no idea what the Vancura position is. But I must say I have earned numerous half points due to theoretical positions, especially in blitz and rapid.

I was reading Keres' Practical Chess Endings in the bath the other day (as you do) and enjoyed his very classical comment on this and many other R & P -v- R positions that 'a good player must know these by heart'.

Of course few of us would call ourselves good players by Keres' standards, but I just wondered. I would do a poll if I knew how, but just out of interest, how many people here would know (even roughly) what the Vancura position was? Don't post what it is (yet), just whether you'd recognise and/or be able to apply it.

I'll start it off by saying that I would have known the thing properly in about 1982, and that I have done for about the last week, but in between producing the name from a dusty cupboard of my memory if sufficiently prompted (say by a multiple choice quiz) would have been the best I could do.

Is any of this stuff ever actually important? My impression is that few English IMs could manage this either as a matter of knowledge or indeed over the board at a seven-hour time limit (see Kazhgalayev-Hanley, Port Erin 2006).  GMs would vary. I heard Keith Arkell call Vancura 'a trivial draw' but I wouldn't bet on him knowing the name (not that matters, of course). On the other hand I wouldn't back Willie Watson to be able to tell it from a banana, though that's not to say he couldn't work it out if it came up.

But does it matter? I can't think of a single occasion on which I've had any of the classic 'knowledge' endgames - R & P -v- R, R f&h -v- R, R and a pawn -v- R with fgh each, R & B -v- R, those R & P's -v- B & P's fortresses, Q -v- R, Q -v- R and pawns fortresses, R -v- 3 Ps mutual zugzwangs, and so on. I suppose I've had the odd Lucena, and once a R v Pawns endgame with a thematic trick (which I didn't know but stumbled into). Maybe I've just been lucky and I'm in for a horrible retribution in due course.

What are other people's experiences about this?