Chess Endings - Complete Training Course

The idea of creating one (or more passed pawns) is one (if not the most) powerful idea to use in your endings. Let's study this with some games played by the best players.

What shall you do if you can't create passed pawns? Here you'll find a powerful alternative.

Putting the knowledge into practice is the best way to acquire new skills to use in your games. Let's practice what we learned.

Here we'll discuss the main things that we'll take into account to consider a position an ending.

Here we'll study those positions on which having an extra pawn is decisive in rook endings.

Having an extra pawn in a rook ending is not always enough to win a game. Here we'll study some positions on which the weaker side can defend such endings.

A rook pawn (a or h-pawn) normally increases the drawing chances for the defending side and here we'll see why. We'll also analyze which is the best way to place a rook when having a passed pawn.

Connected passed pawns are a very powerful weapon in all endings, including rook endings. As we'll see here, sometimes even 2 connected passed pawns can outplay a full rook.

While having a material advantage can be important, having more active pieces in endings can be even more decisive. Here we'll see why.

As we saw in rook endings, we must know king plus pawn against king endings in other to correctly judge other endings. Let's understand when this position is a draw or a loss for the defending side.

Here we'll study something very interesting about the chess board. We'll start with a famous endgame study and while analyzing it we'll realize that (spoiler alert) a straight line is not the only shortest way to reach a square. This idea can be decisive in some positions.

Here we’ll see all the ideas that we learned combined and we’ll also see more advanced ideas, such as distant opposition or triangulation.

Although we have already seen how important stalemate can be in pawn endings to save some positions, this idea is not limited to these endings. Here we'll study how important this idea can be, including positions where having an extra pawn and a bishop is not enough to win.

Perpetual check is an important resource, either to defend a bad position or sometimes to save a desperate one.

Sometimes positions that might look lost due to large material disadvantage can be saved by building up a fortress. Let's study some positions to understand this idea.

In pawns endings, we've already analyzed positions on which having to play was not advantage, but a problem. This situation is called zugzwang and here we'll see this idea in other endings.

Promoting the pawn to a queen is normally the most logical choice, as it is the strongest piece. However, here we'll see some situations on which promoting the pawn to a weaker piece (underpromotion) is better.

A pawn more majority is simply having more pawns on one side of the board than your opponent. Here we'll see the cases on which we can use a pawn majority to get an advantage.

Here we'll see a more advanced idea, which is to improve your position by placing your pieces on the best possible squares before taking more concrete actions.

Endings with a bishop against a knight are quite common. Although the value of these two pieces is very close, here we'll see positions on which a bishop is stronger than a knight and analyze the reasons behind such cases.

One of the advantages of the knight over a bishop is that it can attack pawns on light and dark squares, whereas a bishop is limited to one color. Here we'll see how this can make a knight stronger than a bishop in some positions.

Sometimes attacking one weakness is not enough to win the game. Here we'll see how we can create and/or attack more weaknesses and how this can be a decisive factor.

Opposite-colored bishops endings are sometimes wrongly considered as easy and very drawish, but as we'll see on this lecture they can also become quite complex.

Adding rooks, minor pieces, or queens affects positions with opposite-colored bishops and here we'll study why.

In this lecture we'll study the material imbalance in positions on which a minor piece (knight or bishop) plays against pawns. A minor piece is supposed to be worth about 3 pawns, but here we'll see how this balance can change in endings.

We have already studied positions on which a bishop plays against a knight or a bishop plays against another bishop of different color. Therefore, it is now time to analyze those positions with a knight playing against a knight or a bishop playing against a bishop of the same color. As we'll see, having the same piece does not necessarily mean that we'll have a dull position.

When having queens, we need to consider (in addition to all the ideas that we studied) the importance of the perpetual check as a resource for the defending side. Additionally, these endings can be extremely concrete as we'll see.

Normally, a pawn is no match against a queen. However, there are some very specific positions on which the side having the pawn can defend, so we'll learn those positions.

Here we'll study other endings that might occur in your games, such as rook plus minor piece against rook plus minor piece, bishop plus knight against rook and two rooks against a queen.

Here we'll start with some of the easiest checkmates, which are those positions when the opponent only has a king and we have a king plus a rook or a queen. We'll also study the main principles behind checkmating, what the stronger side should aim for and what the defending side should do to delay checkmate.

Although 2 bishops are normally stronger than a rook, giving checkmate with them and a king is arguably a bit more complicated. Following the same principles studied to give checkmate, we'll see how to play this ending.

Bishop, knight and king can give checkmate to a lone king but this task is actually more complicated than the checkmates that we studied before. Here we'll learn the key ideas to play this ending.

Two knights are normally unable to give checkmate with best defense. On the other hand, if the weaker side has an extra pawn this might be actually bad and allow the stronger side to give checkmate.

Starting with endings on which we have material on both sides, we'll start with this ending that is normally winning for the stronger side. On the other side, winning it is not trivial so we'll learn how to play it correctly.

Rook against a knight or a bishop is normally a draw but as we'll see some positions can be quite hard to defend. We'll also study how to defend with the bishop when the king is driven to the edge of the board, and which corner the king should aim for.

Rook and knight against rook is normally a position that can be defended without too much trouble. On the other hand, rook and bishop against rook is hard to defend and some positions that we'll see (that have already been studied in the 18th century) can be winning.

Here we'll study other less common (but still very interesting) endings such as queen against 2 minor pieces, queen against rook and minor piece and queen and minor piece against queen.

Here we'll analyze in depth one of my favorite endings using many of the ideas learned in the course, and we'll see what I consider the nicest triangulation, where Black offers material while doing the triangulation several times!