21 Jan 09
1 edit
Originally posted by AlzheimerOh, I've played it extensively myself as well. I have hardly ever gotten problems out of the opening either, at least as far as Seel's book pointed out variations.
I have to disagree with this.
I helped him with his book and I play Phillidor myself, even here on the RHP site.
No problems with the endgames yet as black.
BUT: Most of my opponents so far didn't know the theorie as good as I do, so most of the time they didn't even reached an equal endgame.
But I have the feeling that here and there he wasn't really fair, that some positions which were actually slightly better for white he added an "=" symbol at the end because he wanted black to be at least equal everywhere. (Ofcourse this may be just me.)
Most of the endgames will be pretty equal, yes, although extremely drawish. This is because most of the time, black aims to play d6-d5, and when he achieves that, it is very likely that the d5 and e4 pawns will be swapped, then the queens exchanged, and you have an endgame with a symmetrical pawn structure and two open central files where the rooks can be exchanged.
Other times white will play a piece to d5, black will exchange it (Nxd5 exd5), the e-file is opened up and the heavy pieces are exchanged there.
This is also what put me off the Philidor. In some variations it's simply impossible to play for a win. It has great surprise value though.