The topic of today discussion is endgames. I know most chess players don’t like studying endgames. They spend all their dedicated chess time memorizing 10th and 11th moves of one of the lines in Closed Sicilian or some other opening.Then, after losing the game, after game after game, they are very disappointed and say something like ‘Why do I lose? I spend so much time studying chess!’ If only they spend 25% of the time they spend ‘studying’ openings to understand simple endgames they would’ve been so much better chess players… 200 points better or maybe even 400?
Today’s topic is triangulation. We will cover a neat technique that will help you to win chess endgame positions in which it seems that’s impossible to make a progress. The triangulation is applicable in such endgame positions where you would like to lose a tempo, keeping position the same. In other words if it’s not your move, but your opponent’s the game is won for you.
I know you might think, ‘What? Why do we want to lose a move, when we struggle so much to get a tempo in the opening or in the middle game?’ Endgames are completely different animals, sometimes to win a game we need to give up a move opportunity in order to drive the opponent’s King away from the important square.
As you already know the rook endgames are the most common type of endgames occurring in chess. About half of all endgames are rook endings. Today we’ll talk about one very important and common type of endgame: Rook + Pawn vs. Rook.
This is one of the very theoretical endgames. All the variations are well analyzed and known, that’s why it’s called an elementary endgame. Previously I have covered Endgame Strategies and King + Pawn vs. Rook.Elementary does not necessarily mean easy, it means with the perfect play it will be a predefined win, draw, or lose. You’ll ask me why you need to know how to play endgame which is a theoretically lost for you? Good question. Since this is only a theoretical lose, it’s only a guaranteed lose in a perfect world, such as when playing against a strong computer program armed with Nalimov’s Tables.
Today I will tell you how to win more chess games. Yes, it’s that simple, after reading today’s article you will have a pretty good picture in your head and will be able to fix something that you doing wrong in order to win or at least not to lose games. The topic of today’s discussion is again: endgames. Are you excited? Well, you should be since you are the one who will play better after today and win games.
I have written many articles about endgames such as how to improve your endgame play, how to checkmate with a Knight and Bishop, Two Bishops or play Rook Endgames. This time the topic of our interest is very broad and will explain endgame strategies that can be applied to any type of endgames.
Rook endgames are the most common type of endgames there is in the game of chess. These endgames take place in about 50% of all games. If you are a tournament chess player and wish to improve your results in future, the rook endgame is something to look at more deeply. Rook endgames are not something that can be played intuitively; there are many positions where you need to make ‘strange looking’ or ‘counter-intuitive moves’ to win or draw the game.
What’s so special about the endgames? One of the greatest chess players of the past Mr. Capablanca suggested that one should start learning chess from studying endgames. First, a player should start with simple endgames with just a few pawns present on the board and then move on to more complex and sophisticated ‘piece’ endgames. Mr. Capablanca believed that a player should study an endgame first, prior to studying opening or the middle game, since it is possible to master this part of the game without knowing opening or a middle game. However, opening and the middle game cannot be studied separately from the endgame and so the endgame should be a priority thing.
Two Bishop Mate is another checkmate which seems problematic for club level chess players to implement, even though it should not be. I have previously written about Knight + Bishop Checkmate, which is much more subtle, but no doubt very important to know. The main idea of checkmating with two bishops is occupying the center with the bishops, using the King to force the opponent’s King to the edge of the board and checkmating.
Today I will discuss the Knight + Bishop endgame checkmate. This endgame was well analyzed by Philidor long time ago, in 1749. It is not the most common mate you will see, it occurs once at every 5000 games, but it is definitely important to know how to use the Knight and a Bishop together.
I have seen many guides that are trying to explain how to actually checkmate a lone King with Knight and Bishop, but they’re very often failing to teach. They show moves, give some explanation and it even seems like you understand how to do it yourself at first, but… when trying to do it, it just doesn’t work.
The problem is that there is no exact guide for this mate available; at least I wasn’t able to find it. This is a main reason why I’m writing and you’re (hopefully) reading this. I will systematically present the well known information and form an algorithm, how to do it.
Have you ever found yourself in a position when you think, you should win this endgame but don’t know how, even though it looks so simple? Many players did. In fact they failed to win these dead won endgames and end up with a draw or even a “0” right next to their name.
It feels very disappointing to draw one of these “almost won” endgames. It feels even worth to lose one.
If you’re curious to know how to win them, read on.
I have written multiple articles over chess strategy and the middle game, but for some reason I have avoided writing on the endgame theme. I was scanning through the “Lazy Person’s Guide to Endgame” by GM Ian Rogers published in January 2010 Chess Life Magazine and decided to write my own thing.The first endgame analyzed by GM Rogers is the famous Queen vs. Rook ending. He claims that it is an easy win for the side with the queen. I decided to go ahead and test this Q vs. R endgame against the Chessmaster Grandmaster Edition, setting the Queen for myself and a Rook for the engine. After about 20 tries I found this task to be impossible.