Cara Menjadi Master Catur Chapter Six

Winnability 

Any  experienced  player  can  figure  out  when  he  has  an  advantage , particularly a big advantage. A master knows when his advantage is big enough . Enough to win. When a position is that  good, a master knows that he doesn't have to look  for elaborate plans or to calculate risk-taking variations. He should be able  to win with relatively simple moves, especially  one-move and two-move threats,  and simple precautions to  eliminate counterplay. Winnability How does  a  master assess  winnability? There are several  factors  including (a)  the  material  situation,  (b) the  positional  plusses  and  (c)  how  close  the position is to an  endgame. If  it's pretty close - so that a trade  of  one pair of  pieces will reach a bookish endgame  position  - then  experience  or textbook  learning  should  give  you  a fa irly accurate  evaluation. This is  where knowing basic endgame principles  will count.

The Necessary  'How' 
Another important  factor  in  assessing  whether a position is  favorable enough is simply whether you can imagine  how it  would be won. But  'imagine'  isn 't  the right  word. Imagination has little  to do with it. It's  a matter  of  visualizing a plan.

Golden Rule 
There 's a  golden rule  about  converting  an  advantage  that  most non-masters don 't  appreciate. They don 't  appreciate it  because they  simply  don 't believe  it: It  is usually easier  to  win with a  substantial positional advantage than  with an  equally substantial material advantage. Amateurs  don 't  believe  it  because  they  exaggerate  the  significance  of material . After all, they can  see an extra pawn . A  positional  advantage  is harder to  detect. As a result they have a difficult time  believing  the  ru le  in  positions like the following.

Positional, Not Material 
There  are  many,  many  examples  of that:  A  passed pawn  - a  positional advantage - turns out to be superior  to an extra  pawn - a material advantage.  Yet the golden rule is  difficult for many amateurs to accept. Part of  the reason  is  that they 're  confused  by  the  somewhat  vague,  somewhat  imposing  word 'positional '.  If  we  replaced  it  with  'non-material '  they 'd  have  an easier  time grasping positions like the  following.

Material  Imbalance 
When  material  is  not  equal  but only slightly  out  of  balance,  positional advantages  usual ly  decide  the  outcome.  This  is  most  evident  when  a  player gives  up the  Exchange for  one or two pawns. If  it's  a difference of  one  pawn, the  player with the  rook is  marginally ahead. If  it's two  pawns,  the other  player holds  an  equally  small  edge.  In either case, the  edge  may not  be  enough  to  win  without  positional  plusses.  Few  people understood that  better than the  sixth world champion, Mikhail  Botvinnik.

The Winning Hierarchy 
The  corollary  of what we  said  earl ier  - that  a  master is  reluctant  to  trade pieces when  he has a positional edge  - is  that  a master is  usually eager  to  trade pieces when  he  has  a material edge.  But  which pieces? If  you are only one pawn ahead,  which pieces do you want to  keep? If  you trade  all  the  pieces  and get down  to just  kings  and  pawns,  you  have excellent winning chances. But for other matchups  it's  not that easy. For  masters  it  is.  They  know  the  winning  hierarchy.  Here 's  the  list  for pawn-up  endgames. The  most winnable endings  are  at  the  top,  and  they  go  in descending order to the hardest at  the bottom:

King-vs .  -king  endings
Knight-vs.-knight endings
Queen-vs. -queen  endings
Bi shop-vs. -bishop (same color)  endings
Bishop-vs .-knight endings
Knight-vs.  -bi shop endings
Rook-vs.  -rook endings

Opposite colored bi shop-vs .-bis hop endings This works best with  positions  in  which one  side  has  an extra pawn  on the other  wing,  typically  the  queenside.  If  all  the  pawns  are  on the  kingside,  the hierarchy  changes  slightly.  Knight-vs .-bishop  moves  higher  up  the  list  and bi shop-vs.  -knight moves well down. Relatively  inexperienced  players  are  unaware  of the hierarchy.  This  is  true even of  young,  highly rated players . During a session of  the  U.S. Chess School a few years ago,  eight promising youngsters  were  asked  to  evaluate  the  winning chances  of  some  of  these matchups. They were given  a  slightly different example,  with  all  the  pawns on one wing : Suppose  all  the  pawns were on the  kingside, with  one player having pawns on  the e-, f- g-, and h-files,  and the  other player having  pawns  just on the  f- ,  g­and h- files. What are  the  winning  chances,  from  zero  to  1  00  percent,  for  each matchup? The youngsters,  almost  all  of  whom  soon  became  strong  masters,  gave varied answers.  For example, with just  rooks on the board,  one student thought the  right  answer  was  zero,  that  is, no  chance  of winning.  Another  said  the chances  were only  I 0  percent. The right answer is more like a  30 percent. All  but  one  of  the  students  thought  that  with  same-colored  bishops,  the pawn-up  player  had  reasonable  winning  chances,  40  or  50  percent.  Their instructor,  GM Joel Ben jamin, told them it was really only about 20 percent. And  what  aboutqueen  endings?  Three  of the  eight  students  thought  they offered  a 20 or 30 percent chance of  winning. It's more like  50  percent. Even many experienced players have an irrational fear of  queen endings, for example. Given a choice of what to swap in a pawn-up 'iW+.t-vs.- 'ilf-tlL) ending, they'll trade queens instead of  minor pieces.  That 's often a blunder.

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