The Endgame Self-Taught

Larry Tapper

Endgame Secrets by Christopher Lutz, 1999 Batsford, Softcover,
Figurine Algebraic Notation, 175pp., $18.95

The cover blurb of Endgame Secrets describes Christopher Lutz as
a "self-trained grandmaster."  One wonders what this means,
exactly.  It would be pleasant to learn that he spent his early years
holed up in a lonely mountain retreat with only a tattered copy of
Bilguer's Handbuch.  More likely he simply prefers to go his own
way and doesn't feel the need to hire a high-profile professional
trainer. 

Be that as it may, the story behind this book is straightforward and
appealing.  A couple of years ago, Lutz came to the conclusion that
he was faltering too often during the endgame stage; so he
resolved to make an intensive study of his own games and also the
games of notable endgame technicians such as Karpov and
Smyslov.  He presented the results of his studies at a seminar for
young German masters, which eventually provided some of the
material for this book.

Endgame Secrets includes 45 practical endgames, deeply
annotated and sorted by material balance.  The book does not
pretend to be comprehensive in any way; it's more of a sampler of
topics to which Lutz happened to turn his attention.  At the level of
the individual endgame, however, Lutz provides as complete a
package as one could hope for, including broad strategic
explanations, voluminous supporting variations, and shrewd
comments on the psychology of endgame play.  

The author writes that he took Stefan Kindermann's advice and
presented each endgame in the form of an exercise. Actually the
way he approached this task may strike some readers as
perfunctory to the point of being comical. More often than not,
Lutz simply gives the position and the unannotated moves, then
writes "Analyse the game." The author's detailed comments
follow.  

There is, however, much to be said for these laconic directives.
Part of the practical difficulty of the endgame is recognizing which
moves are real decision points and which moves can safely be
made without much thought.  The format of Endgame Secrets
encourages readers to try to identify the critical junctures
themselves, putting them in a better position to appreciate fully
what Lutz has to say. 

Even the more specific exercises have an instructively opaque
quality: one is never sure whether the key ideas are supposed to be
spectacular or prosaic. A case in point is the following position
from Kamsky-Illescas, Las Palmas 1994. If you are in the mood
for a warm-up exercise, hold your scroll bar just below the
diagram and try to answer Lutz's question: "The b2 pawn is under
attack. How should White react?" (See Diagram)

White: Kc2, Re1, Nc3; pawns - b2, d5, e4, g3, h2; 
Black: Kg8, Rb4, Na4; c5, d6, e7, f7, g6, h6

In this position Kamsky solved all his problems with the modest
and logical move 34 Nd1.  The game ended quickly and peacefully
after 34...Kg7 35 b3 Nb6 36 Nc3 c4.  As Lutz explains, "It is
important to keep the knight. The black knight can be driven back
with b2-b3. 34 Nxa4? Rxa4 leads to a clear black advantage
(Illescas Cordoba). White is tied to the defence of the pawns on b2
and e4. Black can start an attack with either ...Kg7 and ...g6-g5 or
...Rd4 and ...f7-f5. 34 b3? Nxc3 leads to the same problems for
White."  

This is the sort of position one hardly ever sees in problem books:
no brilliant strokes or deep theoretical insights are called for, just
mature, steady  judgment. Yet the endgame in practice is often like
this. 

Of course the endgame is just as likely to deceive in the opposite
way: simple-looking positions may conceal devilish complexities.
At first glance the position diagrammed below, from Stefansson-
Lutz, Manila 1992, looks like the kind of routine win any
reasonably competent tournament player might work out at the
board.  (See Diagram)

White: Ke3; pawns - g2, h3
Black: Kf7; pawn -  h7

Scoring the point is not so easy, however, as the game continuation
demonstrated: 58 Kf4 Kf6 59 g4 Kg6 60 h4 Kf6 61 g5+ Kg6 62
Kg4 h6 63 h5+ Kg7 64 g6 Kg8 1/2-1/2. Lutz comments: "White
has to know the right plan: when Black's h-pawn is still on h7,
White's king must go to h6 before the pawns can be pushed. White
has to reach the position Kh6 + Pg5 + Ph5 vs. Kg8 + Ph7 with
Black to move, then he wins after 1...Kh8 2 g6 Kg8 3 g7 or
2...hxg6 3 hxg6 Kg8 4 g7. With White to move this position is
only drawn."

In fact this position is fairly hard to solve even after reading Lutz's
overview. Where did White go wrong? How could he have won?
I'll leave this as an open exercise for the reader, who can find a
complete and clear solution in Lutz's notes to endgame #1.  

There are several good studies in the book that are narrowly
thematic, like the two we've seen so far. For example, there's a
nice double-bishop endgame in which White manages to win with
a minimal Hedgehog-type space advantage; and there are some
excellent analyses of the fine points of rook + minor piece
endgames.  

Perhaps Lutz is at his best, however, when he annotates long
endgame struggles with many mistakes and vicissitudes, most
especially painful lessons learned by the author himself.  Viewed
in this light, the main attraction must surely be Lutz's epic battle
with Karpov at Dortmund in 1993. After reaching the diagrammed
position, Lutz found himself thinking pleasant thoughts about a
direct attack on Karpov's king. (See Diagram)

White: Kc1, Qh5, Rd1, Rf1, Bd3, Bf4; pawns - a3, b2, c4, e4, g3,
h2
Black: Kg8, Qb8, Ra8, Rf8, Be5, Bc6; pawns - a7, b6, d7, e6, g7,
h7

Here Karpov threw cold water on Lutz's plan with the canny
exchange sacrifice 21...Rxf4! forcing a dynamically equal
endgame after 22 gxf4 Bxf4+ 23 Kb1 Qe5 24 Qxe5 Bxe5.  From
here on, the veteran gradually outplayed his 22-year-old opponent,
finally scoring the full point after seven and a half gruelling hours. 
Karpov's method was, as usual, instructive. He first refrained from
exchanging rooks, foreseeing that his rook could find an active
post on the fourth rank; then slowly improved the activity of his
bishops without prematurely releasing the tension by a direct
attack on the weak e-pawn. Lutz missed many drawing
opportunities, but these were not so easy to see after such an
exhausting series of challenges and disappointments.

The analysis of this endgame takes up 19 full columns, beginning
with the remarkably stoic comment: "It is interesting to see the
White position deteriorate until defeat becomes inevitable." Here
the author modestly neglects to mention exactly what was at stake
in this game. In this Category XVI event Lutz,  the lowest-rated
player at 2550,  astonished the chess world by tying for second
with Kramnik ahead of Kamsky.  Had he held the Karpov
endgame, Lutz would have done even better, clear second without
a single loss.  Lutz is still quite young, only 28, and one can only
think that his unblinking determination to exorcise this demon
bodes well for his future prospects.

Lutz's thoroughness and objectivity apply to the editorial as well
as the analytic virtues. Apparently things have been a little ragged
lately at Batsford, but there is no evidence of this in Endgame
Secrets.  The author is especially to be commended for his
extremely scrupulous use of sources: when a game has previously
been annotated, he gives all the relevant references right at the
beginning. 

Since many examples in this book explore possibilities that even
grandmasters didn't see, it's clear that Lutz is aiming primarily at a
relatively high-level audience, even including his professional
colleagues.  However, there is no reason why this should deter
general readers who share the author's intellectually curious
temperament.  If you are the sort of tournament player who enjoys
eavesdropping on GM post-mortems, you will probably be
delighted by Endgame Secrets, where you will find not only pearls
of analytic wisdom but also many trenchant observations on the
flow and passion of high-level play.