Stigma wrote on 12/17/11 at 08:21:52:


Willempie has already said exactly what I would have said.  I will just add a couple of points.

First, I don't accept you'd have to leave something else out to fit BN v K in.  It's a really thick book isn't it?  A couple of extra pages would surely make no difference.

Second, I don't know about the ICC bot which could be really good, but my experience is that practicing BN v K against engines isn't very useful because they always just head to the wrong corner.  While this might be the way to delay the mate for the longest time it's actually easy to play against because you can just download your standard plan.

Mostly, though, as I've said earlier, I simply don't agree with the "it's not practical" argument.

JonathanB wrote on 12/16/11 at 22:48:25:



The devil's advocate asks: If you wanted BN v K to be in the Silman book, which position that's there would you leave out and why? I think his argument would be that every single position/concept he treats is more practically useful.

Anyway it's not like there aren't enough books that cover B+N vs K already. On the ICC you can even practice it against an automated "bot" 24/7. So anyone who really wants to know it can find it elsewhere.

Uhohspaghettio wrote on 12/16/11 at 22:29:11:


We agree to disagree on your rehash of the Silman argument then, but you're post is a response to a post I didn't write.

I said imagine if you did all that endgame study and then couldn't do BN v K because you'd never studied it.  Not the same thing at all as just not being able to do it.

As for being able to go a long way without any endgame knowledge at all - well, that's entirely right.  I know somebody who is over 2200 and doesn't know the first thing about endings.  Literally nothing.  Not Lucena, not which Q v pawn on the 7th is drawn and which is won.  Nothing.

It's true enough you can become a 'good' - by most standards - player without any endgame knowledge.  That's an argument for not writing an endgame book at all.  It's not an argument for writing one and leaving BN v K out.

I don't know why you'd be embarrassed or "feel like a tit" if it came up and you couldn't do it. It's such an extremely unlikely occurance, your time is probably better spent elsewhere. 

Maybe a GM would feel embarrassed, but that's because they would be expected to be able to work it out over the board anyway. Studying the ending specifically to avoid this embarrassment is only masking their limitations. 

I mean, there is a case to be made that you could do pretty damn well without bothering to study any endings at all. Look at the ending frequencies and see if you really think you should be studying N + B "just in case".  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_endgame#Frequency_table
   
So I would argue any embarrassment from being unable to do it is just an illusion, and people who find fault with you are just under an illusion. IMO these are totally illegitimate reasons to do something even though they may have a psychological aspect. If people are ignorant about how hard/easy something is, then allow them to be. 

You would have to watch 15,000 games live on average to see it 3 times. This would mean a game a day for over 41 years, so there is no way that is true according to those statistics.

I've had it twice in an official game, though to be fair the 2nd one was due to me underpromoting, because he wouldnt resign with less than 2 minutes on his clock.

But how you can call a book an endgame course and omit this is beyond me. It's like removing Mark Twain from American literature class. Plus the B-N-K configurations are extremely important in endings with light pieces.

fling wrote on 12/16/11 at 09:29:36:


Yes I know, but I think he's just wrong.  OK, it comes up rarely but you could say that about a lot of things.  Admittedly, it's probably more true of BN v K than other endings.

The thing is it doesn't take long to learn what you need to do and a book the size of his it should have been included.  Anyway, aside from learning the mate by studying BN v K you learn how bishops and knights interact.  That's the real reason why you should look at it.

That and not being embarrassed when it comes up. I'm looking at *you* GM Epishin.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1533865

I don't like the Silman book. The de la Villa book is very good. Another choice would be the small Averbakh book "Chess Endings - Essential Knowledge".