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In one interview, I do not remember when (please if someone knows give the link), Kramnik quoted that the best endgame player is Alexei Shirov... I think this interview was around year 2000. Obviously for anyone to reach the very top level they must be very strong in the endgame. Now, I do not think anyone would support Shirov as the best in endgame because he is not top 20 anymore and the world champion extracts most of his wins in the endgame.

Who is the strongest player in endgame nowadays?

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    strongest player in endgame is meaningless, if you cannot survive the previous phases of the game
    – prusswan
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 1:18
  • @prusswan that's a ridiculous comment. It's true but there's nobody that's an endgame wizard but is a weak player because they never survive the middlegame. Endgame ability is second only to tactical ability in determining outcomes at lower levels and maybe just behind openings at high levels.
    – Cleveland
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 2:47
  • how about the strongest player in the opening? in the middlegame? in x moves? how about just checking the elo ratings?
    – prusswan
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 3:00
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    I voted this post to close, because it's too subjective. We can't use Elo to answer this question. There's no definite answer.
    – SmallChess
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 3:22

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The blatantly obvious answer would be Magnus Carlsen who is also the No.1 player in the world, his ability to squeeze out wins from drawn endings is unsurpassed (with a few exceptions, e.g Andersson and Smyslov). Other than that I would naturally consider Vladimir Kramnik, although it is very hard to draw the lines between the various stages of the game nowadays as most of the top players nowadays are extremely versatile and have a universal style of play.

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  • I think so the best endgame player is Magnus Carlsen.
    – koravi
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 10:09

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