Keith Arkell is an English grandmaster active on the national and international scene for more than forty years and very much still going strong.

Arkell’s Endings is his second book and this is the first book (as opposed to DVD) from Ginger GM

Arkell’s Odyssey was published in 2012 by Keverel Chess Books; hugely popular and in high demand on abebooks, Amazon, eBay and other reselling platforms.

From the rear cover of Endings we have the following publishers blurb :

“With chess booming online and time controls becoming ever faster, mastery of the endgame has never been so important. A few positions can be memorised; most rely on feel. How would you go about converting an extra pawn in a rook endgame and would you have any idea how to even try to win bishop and knight against knight and pawn? In Arkell’s Endings, acclaimed endgame expert Keith Arkell guides you through some of his finest games – and grinds. Making good use of clear explanation, not a wealth of variations, he should convince even the most ardent of opening theoreticians and attacking experts that endgames can be enjoyable, as well as beautiful on occasion.

Not only will readers enhance their intuition in the final stages of the game, they will never again write off an endgame as dull or a draw. Along the way, the reader will also learn plenty about the Minority Attack and Arkell’s Scale of Pawns, which may mean you will no longer look favourably on trading an e-pawn for a d-pawn. As becomes clear in Simon Williams’ Afterword, there is so much more to Keith Arkell’s chess prowess than just his endgame mastery. Throughout, his creativity and sheer resourcefulness shine through, with the Ginger GM demonstrating that one should never allow Arkell to advance his g-pawn as Black, or even to attack.

Grandmaster Keith Arkell has been one of Britain’s most prolific players since turning professional in 1980. His rivalry on the weekend circuit with fellow GM Mark Hebden is the stuff of legend, but he has also thrived on the bigger stage. He has finished first as many as 25 times at the Paignton International Congress and in 2008 tied for first in the British Championship at Liverpool’s iconic St George’s Hall. 2014 was another highly successful year, as Arkell became the European Over-50 Champion, following that up with the silver medal at the World Senior Championships.”

Keith has developed a reputation for working hard at the board and not being afraid to grind out a position maybe with a small edge or even no edge at all and just keep on plugging away (Carlsen style). His long time choice of the Smyslov Variation of the Caro-Kann as Black is deal for this approach.

[fen flip=true]r1bqkbnr/pp1npppp/2p5/8/3PN3/8/PPP2PPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq – 0 1[/fen]

White to play and loose !

To demonstrate that this is a book of note there is a foreword by acknowledged endgame analyst and World Championship Candidate, GM Jonathan Speelman whose expertise on endings and the theory of corresponding squares is respected world-wide. Interestingly enough, JS also selects the Smyslov Caro-Kann as a weapon of choice.

Arkell’s Endings contains 33 games spanning the period from 1983 to the present day against a vast range of player strength and experience.

Keith introduces his games with a preamble / Introduction that sets out his rather unique playing philosophy. Keith describes his “Hierarchy of Pawns” which makes complete sense and yet is rarely (if at all) spelt out in training and coaching literature. Keith sets out his enthusiasm for the Carlsbad (pawn) structure which I learnt much about from Kevin Wicker in his golden nugget of a book, “How to play the Queen’s Gambit Exchange Variation“. This Introduction itself is more instructional than you might at first imagine.

Keith provides each game in full and rarely makes any comment on the opening except when its choice leads to particular kind of endgame structure. The middlegame comments indicate plans and ideas to reach a superior ending and the endgame comments are quite specific.

We are grateful to IM Richard Palliser (in charge of the book’s production) for permission to reproduce game 14 as an excerpt :

[pgn]
[Event “Crawley e2e4 Gatwick op 10”]
[Site “Crawley”]
[Date “2016.10.26”]
[Round “1”]
[White “Arkell, Keith C”]
[Black “Wadsworth, Matthew J”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “D23”]
[WhiteElo “2450”]
[BlackElo “2290”]
[Annotator “Keith Arkell”]
[PlyCount “159”]
[EventDate “2016.10.26”]
[EventType “swiss”]
[EventRounds “9”]
[EventCountry “ENG”]
[SourceTitle “Arkell’s Endings : Game 1”]
[Source “ChessBase”]
[SourceDate “2017.10.13”]
[SourceVersion “1”]
[SourceVersionDate “2017.10.13”]
[SourceQuality “1”]

{[%evp 0,159,19,29,23,-4,25,20,30,-2,20,22,9,-6,15,-19,-25,-6,-8,-13,6,-4,-3,
-3,6,-21,-8,-11,22,0,7,1,14,1,3,11,8,0,5,5,29,50,52,22,21,24,45,27,63,69,55,70,
72,80,74,14,33,25,26,42,34,44,48,48,68,63,89,99,98,92,126,116,115,116,116,122,
128,113,128,129,132,133,135,151,158,147,151,136,137,132,142,134,152,152,156,
152,162,164,163,152,152,152,163,153,153,161,157,136,153,153,153,161,157,157,
162,157,157,157,157,157,158,134,158,134,208,189,189,189,189,141,189,165,182,
160,177,156,202,184,193,202,210,195,208,221,276,293,377,373,545,373,639,373,
373,367,365,381,371,480,537,732,1259,28004]} {Taken from Arkell’s Endings,
Game 14, pp 68-71} 1. Nf3 d5 2. c4 c6 3. d4 Nf6 4. Qc2 dxc4 5. Qxc4 Bg4 6. Nbd2
Nbd7 7. g3 e6 8. Bg2 Be7 9. O-O Bh5 10. a4 $1 $146 (10. b3) 10… a5 11. Qb3
Qb6 12. Qxb6 Nxb6 13. b3 Nfd5 14. Bb2 O-O 15. Nc4 Nxc4 {This capture gave me
some encouragement as my pawn will gain in stature, and I will have long-term
prospects on the b-file.} 16. bxc4 Nb4 17. Rfd1 Rfd8 18. c5 Bf6 19. e3 b6 {
Against a waiting move I planned Rab1 and Ba3} 20. cxb6 Rab8 21. Rac1 Rxb6 22.
Rd2 Bg6 23. Bc3 Be4 {[#]} {I think this was an oversight and he had missed my
25th move.} 24. Ne5 Bxg2 25. Nc4 Ra6 26. Kxg2 {Now I have the kind of position
I like: no weaknesses and a guarantee of permanent pressure against his
queenside pawns.} Rda8 27. Nxa5 {It was hard to resist playing in this
straightforward manner. It will now be a very tough task for Wadsworth to hang
on to his backward c-pawn.} (27. Rb1 {runs into} c5) ({and} 27. Rb2 {allows}
Nd3) 27… Nd5 28. Nb7 Rxa4 29. Rdc2 Ra2 30. Be1 g6 31. Kf3 {[%csl Gc6] With
e3 defended I’m now threatening to capture his pawn.} Rxc2 32. Rxc2 Ne7 33.
Bb4 Ra6 34. Nc5 Ra7 {The c-pawn is lost whatever he does} ({For example} 34…
Rb6 35. Ba5 Rb5 36. Bd8 {with Nd3 or Ne4 to follow}) 35. Ne4 Kg7 {[#]} 36. Bxe7
{I could have exchanged both minor pieces, but felt that the subsequent ending
would be more favourable if I kept the knight, which tends to be more
effective than a bishop at close quarters.} Bxe7 37. Rxc6 h5 38. h3 {[#]} {
How do you set about winning such a position? Clearly not with the pieces
alone, but using pawns will unavoidably involve exchanges, and you don’t
want too many swaps as rook, knight and pawn versus rook and bishop is usually
a simple draw. The answer is somewhere in-between. Ideally you would like to
fix the kingside with g4-g5, and then organise e3-e4 and d4-d5.} Rb7 39. g4
hxg4+ 40. hxg4 Ra7 {[#]} {I was pleased to see this and thought he should
prefer 40…g5, but I guess he was reluctant to put a pawn on the same colour
as his bishop. 40…f5 was also interesting, but I didn’t expect him to
weaken his pawns in such a cavalier manner.} 41. g5 {Now I have a free hand to
slowly improve my position because …f6 will always leave Black with too many
weaknesses. So many times this is what we strive for in chess – leaving the
opponent without any real counterplay is often half the battle.} Ra5 42. Kf4
Ra7 43. Rb6 Bd8 44. Rb5 Rd7 45. Kg4 Be7 46. Ra5 Bd8 47. Ra8 {[#]} {If you
study the great endgame players such as Magnus Carlsen and Anatoly Karpov, you
cannot fail to observe their endless patience. Maintaining the tension rather
than committing oneself to immediate action tends to have a wearisome effect
on the opponent, as well as forcing them to defend accurately to avoid further
damage.} Be7 48. Rc8 Rb7 49. Re8 Rc7 50. Rb8 Rd7 51. f4 Rc7 52. Kf3 Ra7 53. Nc5
Rc7 54. Nd3 Ra7 55. Rc8 Bd6 56. Ke4 Rb7 57. Nf2 {From g4 the knight will have
a choice of entry points into the heart of Black’s position.} Be7 58. Ng4 Ra7
59. Rb8 Bd6 60. Rb5 Be7 61. Ke5 Ra3 {Spooked by my intention to make progress
with e3-e4 and d4-d5, combined with Nf6 and Rb8, Matthew gives some ground.}
62. Rb7 Ra5+ 63. Ke4 Kf8 64. Nf6 Ra8 65. Ke5 Rd8 66. Nh7+ Ke8 67. e4 Ra8 68.
Nf6+ Kf8 69. d5 exd5 70. exd5 Rd8 71. Rb6 {[#]} {Threatening to win on the
spot with 72 d6.} Bc5 72. Rc6 Ba3 73. d6 {Inch by inch I’ve brought about a
winning position. The rest is relatively straightforward.} Kg7 74. Kd5 Bb2 75.
Ng4 Ba3 76. Ne5 f6 77. Rc7+ Kg8 78. Nf7 Bxd6 79. Nxd6 fxg5 80. fxg5 1-0
[/pgn]

and there is a downloadable excerpt here

Settling down with this book is a real pleasure. It very much feels that Keith is in the room with you explaining his thought processes and giving you confidence in your decision making. Keith’s writing style is much like Keith in person : friendly and affable and not attempting to score any points.

The book concludes with an Afterword by Ginger GM Simon Williams.

The Afterword itself is of interest since Simon presents three tremendous games of Keith that are not endgame grinds but great tactical slugfests modestly including Williams – Arkell from Torquay, 1998.

The book concludes with a welcome Index of Opponents.

If you are wondering just how many of these games conclude with Keith’s signature Rook + Bishop versus Rook then you will have to buy the book to find out : I hope you will !

This book has been reviewed elsewhere including this one by Ben Graff

John Upham, Cove, Hampshire, 10th October, 2020

Book Details :

• Softcover : 159 pages
• Publisher:GingerGM; 1st Edition (3 Aug. 2020)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1527265595
• ISBN-13: 978-1527265592

Official web site of Ginger GM