4 ms·

I'm surprised that in the higher ELO ranges, being up a clean pawn has only a comparatively minor impact - I thought that one clean pawn ahead and no other majo

I'm surprised that in the higher ELO ranges, being up a clean pawn has only a comparatively minor impact - I thought that one clean pawn ahead and no other major positional or structural disadvantages was more or less "GG" among top players.

yuvadam 3y ago
Many pawn-up endgames are still technically a draw (king and pawn vs. king [1] in the most extreme example) [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endg...
- smatija 3y ago
  Take care that not all of king and pawn versus king are drawn. Their result depends on relative position of kings. Nice example of more extreme imbalance is that sometimes King+Queen vs King+Pawn is drawn - that is when pawn is on seventh rank of bishop or rook file with defending king in front of it, while attacking king is not close enough to force checkmate. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_versus_pawn_endgame#Queen_versus_a_pawn_on_the_seventh_rank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_versus_pawn_endgame#Quee...
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  Yeah. More commonly rook endings are notoriously hard to win. I gained a lot of rating once I started really studying the ins and outs of all the different rook and pawn vs rook endings. Because no matter what the tablebase might say, you have to be very precise with or without the pawn. So I started getting a lot of wins out of equal positions, and got a lot better at saving a draw in bad positions. Pawn and minor piece vs minor piece is also fraught with drawing chances, especially with bishops. Because you can just sac the piece for the pawn and there's insufficient material for mate. Queen and pawn vs queen is basically a 3 result game at the club level. So many ways to blunder your queen. And at GM level it tends towards a draw I think. Though it's so stupidly complicated I never even tried to properly study it.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    > Yeah. More commonly rook endings are notoriously hard to win. Oh, so it's not just me.
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
      There's a famous saying in chess: "all rook endings are drawn". Of course, this isn't actually true. But it's a useful rule of thumb to just assume it's a draw unless you're sure it's a win, because it probably is, fucking somehow.
- xxs 3y ago
  That depends both on the position of the pawn and the king...
erostrate 3y ago
I suspect the author only counts raw material. So players who lose a pawn but gain compensation reduce the perceived impact of losing a pawn. Including many openings where you temporarily give up a pawn (queen's gambit, benko, etc).
- nomilk 3y ago
  I was thinking the same. It could be true for higher ELO players being down a pawn is a good thing, since your opponent took the bait.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
tux1968 3y ago
Just a friendly pedantic point, it's "Elo", not "ELO". Rather than an acronym, it's a person's name; that being the rating system creator, Arpad Elo.
- xxs 3y ago
  For years the guy calculated the FIDE ratings by hand...
- Olipro 3y ago
  If you want to be fully pedantic, it's Élő, not Elo - the way in which you pronounce the former is dramatically different from the latter.
  - neaden 3y ago
    if you want to be fully fully pedantic its Glicko-2 rating system on Lichess, while FIDE uses Élő.
    - digging 3y ago
      Rather, players have a FIDE rating within FIDE, and a unique rating in each system, because no organization follows the exact, original Elo system.
  - shawabawa3 3y ago
    To be correctly pedantic, it's named after Élő but it is called the Elo rating system
zeteo 3y ago
You are correct, but this uses Lichess ratings, which are a bit inflated, and probably a variety of time controls including blitz. At levels of play below super-grandmaster with full time control the accuracy of play can be rather low, and picking a suboptimal move will often cost you half a pawn (or more) in engine evaluation. Add this up over an entire game and a one pawn advantage is easily lost in the variability of both players making compounding errors.

yuvadam 3y ago

Many pawn-up endgames are still technically a draw (king and pawn vs. king [1] in the most extreme example) [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endgame https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_and_pawn_versus_king_endg...

smatija 3y ago
Take care that not all of king and pawn versus king are drawn. Their result depends on relative position of kings. Nice example of more extreme imbalance is that sometimes King+Queen vs King+Pawn is drawn - that is when pawn is on seventh rank of bishop or rook file with defending king in front of it, while attacking king is not close enough to force checkmate. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_versus_pawn_endgame#Queen_versus_a_pawn_on_the_seventh_rank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_versus_pawn_endgame#Quee...
mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
Yeah. More commonly rook endings are notoriously hard to win. I gained a lot of rating once I started really studying the ins and outs of all the different rook and pawn vs rook endings. Because no matter what the tablebase might say, you have to be very precise with or without the pawn. So I started getting a lot of wins out of equal positions, and got a lot better at saving a draw in bad positions. Pawn and minor piece vs minor piece is also fraught with drawing chances, especially with bishops. Because you can just sac the piece for the pawn and there's insufficient material for mate. Queen and pawn vs queen is basically a 3 result game at the club level. So many ways to blunder your queen. And at GM level it tends towards a draw I think. Though it's so stupidly complicated I never even tried to properly study it.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > Yeah. More commonly rook endings are notoriously hard to win. Oh, so it's not just me.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    There's a famous saying in chess: "all rook endings are drawn". Of course, this isn't actually true. But it's a useful rule of thumb to just assume it's a draw unless you're sure it's a win, because it probably is, fucking somehow.
xxs 3y ago
That depends both on the position of the pawn and the king...

erostrate 3y ago

I suspect the author only counts raw material. So players who lose a pawn but gain compensation reduce the perceived impact of losing a pawn. Including many openings where you temporarily give up a pawn (queen's gambit, benko, etc).

nomilk 3y ago
I was thinking the same. It could be true for higher ELO players being down a pawn is a good thing, since your opponent took the bait.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

tux1968 3y ago

Just a friendly pedantic point, it's "Elo", not "ELO". Rather than an acronym, it's a person's name; that being the rating system creator, Arpad Elo.

xxs 3y ago
For years the guy calculated the FIDE ratings by hand...
Olipro 3y ago
If you want to be fully pedantic, it's Élő, not Elo - the way in which you pronounce the former is dramatically different from the latter.
- neaden 3y ago
  if you want to be fully fully pedantic its Glicko-2 rating system on Lichess, while FIDE uses Élő.
  - digging 3y ago
    Rather, players have a FIDE rating within FIDE, and a unique rating in each system, because no organization follows the exact, original Elo system.
- shawabawa3 3y ago
  To be correctly pedantic, it's named after Élő but it is called the Elo rating system

zeteo 3y ago

You are correct, but this uses Lichess ratings, which are a bit inflated, and probably a variety of time controls including blitz. At levels of play below super-grandmaster with full time control the accuracy of play can be rather low, and picking a suboptimal move will often cost you half a pawn (or more) in engine evaluation. Add this up over an entire game and a one pawn advantage is easily lost in the variability of both players making compounding errors.