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A Collection of Chess Wisdom

The Endgame
Collected & Organized by Kelly Atkins

“To be capable of conducting an endgame to the distant goal with clarity, firmness, and complete familiarity with all its tricks and traps is the sign of the first-class master.”

J. Mieses

Familiarize yourself with the endgames likely to stem from the openings you play.

Exploit advantages and minimize disadvantages.

Be dynamic.

Don’t play aimlessly. Don’t waste moves. Don’t give pointless checks.

Deploy & activate all your pieces. Get your king into the fight.

Cut off lines and cut down enemy threats. Restrain your opponent.

If winning, intensify your efforts. It can be hard to win a won game.

If losing, look for positional draws, fortresses, stalemates, swindles, and sucker punches.

Inflict multiple weaknesses on your opponent, preferably in different sectors, and set up winning double threats.

Avoid weakening pawn moves.

If you have weaknesses, liquidate them.

If an enemy pawn is weak, don’t trade it. Win it!

Create a passed pawn. Use it.

Don’t dilly-dally. If one of your pawns is attackable, be ready to defend it.

Don’t hurry, but if there’s a race, win it!

Escort passed pawns. The king clears the way.

If the king can’t get in front, get behind. Get somewhere.

If the king can’t blockade, block out.

Zugzwang your opponent. Achieve meaningful oppositions.

When mobilizing a pawn majority, push the unopposed pawn first.

If stalled, open a second front. Create another passed pawn. Decoy your opponent.

Don’t make too many extra queens. Two queens are enough.

If ahead by a pawn, exchange pieces, not pawns. If behind by a pawn, exchange pawns, not pieces.

Avoid getting stuck with rook pawns, unless it’s a special case.

Corral. Bishops should restrict knights.

With opposite colored bishops, blockade to draw, create passed pawns to win.

Anchor your good knight.

Don’t put pawns on the same color squares as your bishop.

Fix pawns to impede the enemy bishop.

With two bishops, swap one to get a winning minor piece ending where appropriate.

Activate rooks. To insure activity, you may have to sac a pawn or two.

Attack with rooks from far away. Keep the “checking distance.”

Put rooks behind passed pawns. If not possible, flank-attack them.

In rook endings, if your king must bail out, flee to the short side of the enemy pawn. Keep the long side for your rook.

Shelter your king from enemy rooks. If necessary, build a bridge.

Blockade with the king, not the rook.

In pure queen endings, centralize your queen and choke the enemy’s.

Avoid greed. Cede extra material if it eases the win.

Trade to simplify, avoid exchanges to keep complex. If winning, clarify. If losing, complicate.

Play to shut down all your opponent’s counterplay.

When pawns are far advanced, close to promotion, be on the lookout for tactical tricks involving promotion.

Tactics, combinations and mating attacks are a part of endgame play too. Always be on the lookout for opportunities.

Normally, the player with a bishop against a rook (with no pawns) should be able to draw by heading toward a corner of the opposite color as his bishop.

Endgame goals are to: 1) checkmate the enemy king, 2) promote pawns, and 3) create passed pawns.

In the endgame, sound, mobile pawn structures and an active, aggressive king lead to victory.

Planning is especially important in the endgame, since king position is usually critical and pawn moves are irreversible.

The minimum mating material against a lone king is a king and rook.

To win and endgame with only pieces remaining, you must normally be at least minimum mating material ahead.

Activate your king (usually by centralizing) early in the endgame – for both offense and defense – and maintain an aggressive king position throughout the endgame.

Learn and apply endgame fundamentals: queening square, opposition, triangulation, and zugzwang.

Seize and maintain the opposition in king and pawn endgames. The opposition determines whether the game is a win or a draw.

Avoid moving your king outside the queening square of opposing passed pawns.

Keep your rooks active in the endgame.

Place rooks behind passed pawns.

Bishops of opposite colors are drawish in the endgame, since they can be sacrificed to prevent a solo opposing pawn from queening.

Every pawn is a potential queen, and every new queen was once a passed pawn. Do not lose pawns carelessly.

Develop queening threats on both side of the board. The enemy king is not elastic!

Create an advance passed pawns at every safe opportunity, and promote passed pawns to new queens as quickly as possible.

To promote pawns, advance unopposed pawns first, especially those farthest from the defending king.

An offside (away from the kings) pawn majority can produce a winning passed pawn – either a new queen or an effective decoy.

Capture or blockade opposing passed pawns early, before they threaten to queen.

If an opposing passed pawn reaches the sixth rank, strong measures should be taken immediately!

If you are only one pawn ahead in the endgame, exchange pieces, not pawns. Save your valuable pawns for promotion to queens.

Kings lead pawns to queening in a king and pawn(s) endgame.

In queen and pawn endings, it is helpful to place the king in a fianchetto formation and station the queen on the long diagonal. This makes it very difficult for the opponent to achieve any counterplay.

In a king and pawn endgame, a king on the sixth rank ahead of a safe pawn on the same file (except a rook file) is a certain win.

Remember, a king and a rook-pawn (even with a bishop of opposite color than the pawn's promotion square) is a draw if the defending king can reach the promotion square.

Be alert for endgame tactics, especially sacrifices.

With only one pawn against your opponent's none in an endgame with minor pieces remaining, protect against your opponent's sacrificing a minor piece for your solo pawn and forcing a draw by insufficient material.

Avoid stalemating your opponent. Leave him moves when his king is not in check.

Remember the option of underpromoting a pawn, to avoid stalemate (rook or bishop) or give a winning check.

Remember and apply the five types of draws: insufficient mating material, stalemate, threefold repetition, 50-move rule, and by agreement.

Do not resign prematurely. Play for a draw when behind. Aside from hopelessly drawn positions, offer a draw only when behind or in time trouble. Accept draws only after careful reflection.

In the endgame, make good use of your king. Keep your rooks active. They work best from far away. Don’t let your rooks idle in defense. Try to create a meaningful passed pawn. Convoy it home. Don’t make lots of extra queens. One, or at most, two will do. Otherwise, you increase the chance of stalemate. With an extra queen, mate as soon as possible. If lost, find a stalemate shot, a swindle, or set up a fortress.

One of the best destroyers of counter-chances is a well advanced passed pawn. There is always a danger in letting the enemy have a pawn one square nearer to queening than you have.

To win, keep pawns on both wings.

A very advanced pawn has almost the status of a piece and should be removed if possible.

When ahead in material, exchange pieces.

When behind in material, exchange pawns.

The general rule in endgames is: to win, exchange pieces; to draw, exchange pawns.

Before ever beginning to think of making a passed pawn, or advancing already made passed pawns that cannot yet advance safely, get all your pieces into the best position possible.

In the middlegame, one feeble piece may not be a serious handicap, for it is only one unit among many. But in the endgame, with few pieces on the board, the immobility of one piece means a proportionately bigger burden to carry.

The beginning, middle and end of endgame theory is the importance of passed pawns.

Even the very slightest advantage often suffices to win a knight vs knight ending with pawns on both wings.

In the endgame, bishops of opposite color tend to be drawish.

In the endgame, bishops tend to be stronger if there are pawns on both wings, while knights tend to be stronger if pawns are on only one wing or in the center. The reason is, bishops, with their long-range mobility, can cover both sides of the board, whereas knights, while unable to cope well with far-flung pawns, can cover squares of both colors.

In those cases where the opposite-colored bishop is blockading the passed pawn, the attacking side’s plan consists of getting his king through to the pawn. But sometimes, this can only be achieved by means of a feinting attack on the other wing.

The possibility of making play on both wings is the winning factor with bishops of opposite colors. If play can be made on both wings, there is sometimes a win even with equal pawns.

In rook vs rook, the enemy rook often rules out the cooperation of king and rook because a too-venturesome advance by either king permits a marauding raid. An additional knight or bishop, however, may guard a vital square and permit the coordination of all three pieces.

A cardinal rule for the best use of rooks in endgames: use the rook to cut off the enemy king. A bishop alone can never cut off a king, but a rook can.

In an endgame with only a few pieces, a very mobile rook tends to be almost the equal of a bishop and knight, or of two knights. With a plus of a pawn, it is usually their superior.

The rule for the defending player in queen endings is to have your king close to the scene of action, so that he can afford to exchange queens, or to have his king as far away as possible, so as not to limit his choice of checks or flight squares.

The secret to endgame play is to play like a python. Take your time and choke all the life and counterplay out of your opponent.

In general, you want to push the pawn that stands next to your most advanced pawn.

For drawing purposes, there is nothing like denuding the enemy of pawns on one wing.

Zugzwang is the great enemy of knights and kings in the endgame.

As soon as you get to the endgame, activate the king. Bring it back to the center or somewhere useful. If there are rooks on the board, please make sure to avoid back-rank mates by making luft or centralizing the king. Try to create a passed pawn and make a queen, or force your opponent to give up material to prevent you from doing so. Keep your pieces active. Rooks are effective from far away. Don’t place your pawns on the same color squares as your bishop. In king and pawn endings, try to clear paths for your pawns with your king. Remember the value of diagonal king moves. With them, you can often cover more territory and accomplish multiple aims. Don’t waste time making a lot of queens. Once you get an extra queen, force mate.

When losing, avoid the endgame unless you can achieve a positional draw. You can trade, for instance, to reach an endgame with bishops of opposite colors. Such endgames are often drawn, even if one player is ahead by a few pawns. You also can exchange if you can saddle your opponent with a rook-pawn and a bishop that doesn’t control the pawn’s promotion square. If the endgame comes down to a minor piece and pawn vs a minor piece, you may be able to sacrifice the minor piece for a draw. In general, fight on tooth and nail. Make your opponent earn the win. No one ever won by resigning.