Why you have to know these positions
In the opening and the middlegame you can get by on general principles. The endgame has positions where they do not help: you have to know the plan in advance, or a win turns into a draw and a draw into a loss.
These positions are the same at every level. A grandmaster mates with two bishops in a minute. A 1300 player who never learned the technique may fail to mate within 50 moves and concede a draw two bishops up.
Below are seven endgames, the minimum set up to a rating of 1700. Endgame theory is much larger, but this is where to start.
1. Opposition and the rule of the square
The rule of the square tells you whether a king can catch a passed pawn that gets no help from its own king. One side of the square is the pawn’s path from where it stands to the promotion square. If the defending king is inside the square, or steps into it on its move, it catches the pawn. If it cannot, the pawn queens.
Example: a white pawn on h4, White to move. The pawn needs four moves to reach h8, so the black king has to be within four moves of h8. Draw the square from h4 to h8 and out towards the king; its corners are h4, h8, d8 and d4. From any square in it the king arrives in time.
The square is the same in both examples, and only the route differs. From d4 the king takes the diagonal. From d8 it has to get to g7, because the pawn on h7 covers g8.
The opposition is a position where the kings stand on the same line (a file, a rank or a diagonal) with an odd number of squares between them. It favors the side that is not to move: the other king has to move, and it gives way.
Example: white king on e4, black king on e6, Black to move. Wherever the black king goes, the white king advances. White has the opposition.
To make both rules stick, solve 30 puzzles from the Pawn endgame theme.
2. King and pawn against king
This ending comes up all the time, and players often go wrong in it.
The stronger side’s king should go ahead of its pawn. With the king behind the pawn the game is often a draw. With the king in front there are winning chances, and the key squares give the exact answer.
A pawn’s key squares are the ones from which the stronger side’s king escorts it to promotion, whoever is to move. A pawn on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th rank has three of them, unless it is a rook pawn. They lie two ranks ahead of the pawn: one on its own file and one on each neighboring file.
Example: the key squares of a pawn on e2 are d4, e4 and f4. With the white king on any of them, the pawn gets to e8.
A rook pawn, on the a- or h-file, follows a different rule. If the defending king gets to the corner in front of the pawn, the game is a draw, even with the stronger side’s king ahead of its pawn.
3. The Lucena position (building the bridge)
The Lucena position is the main winning position in rook endings, and usually the first one you are taught. The pawn is one step from promotion, but its own king stands in the way. When the king steps aside, the opponent’s rook starts checking. A player who does not know how to shelter the king from the checks usually gives up a draw here.
The position looks like this. The stronger side’s king is on the promotion square, d8 in the example, and the pawn is on the 7th rank, on d7. The rook on f1 cuts the opponent’s king off along a file: that king stands on g7 and cannot get near the pawn. The opponent’s rook holds the c-file. It keeps the white king off c7 and c8 and will give check once the king leaves d8.
The bridge is built in three steps:
- The rook goes to the 4th rank, 1.Rf4 in the example.
- The king steps off the promotion square and clears the way for the pawn.
- The opponent’s rook gives checks, and under them the king walks down the board towards its own rook. Once it reaches the 5th rank, the rook on the 4th blocks the next check. That is the bridge.
After 6.Rd4 the pawn can no longer be stopped: according to the endgame tablebases, mate is at most eight moves away.
Puzzles on this theme: Rook endgame.
4. The Philidor position (third-rank defense)
The Philidor position is the main drawing position in rook endings. It is how the weaker side defends so that the opponent never gets the Lucena position.
In it your king is on the promotion square of the opponent’s pawn, and the opponent’s king is leading the pawn forward. Your rook holds the third rank counted from your own edge of the board; for Black that is the 6th.
The defense goes like this:
- Keep the rook on that rank until the opponent’s pawn steps onto it. In the example below that is the move d6.
- As soon as the pawn has gone there, take the rook to the far end of the board and check the king from behind.
- The king has nowhere to hide from the checks: the pawn has moved ahead and no longer covers it.
Philidor’s defense saves rook endings a pawn down that look lost, and you will find yourself defending them often.
5. Basic rook endgames
A rook ending with an extra pawn often ends in a draw. What you need here are general principles:
- An active rook. The rook belongs deep in the opponent’s position, where it attacks pawns and checks the king. Giving up a pawn to activate the rook can be better than defending everything with a passive one.
- The rook behind the passed pawn, your own or the opponent’s. Behind your own pawn it pushes it forward; behind the opponent’s it holds the pawn back. This is Tarrasch’s rule.
- An active king. In the endgame the king does not hide: bring it to the center or towards the passed pawn.
- Do not hurry to take a pawn. It is often better to keep up the pressure and bring the king closer than to take the pawn or trade at once.
6. Mate with two bishops
It is a rare ending, but if you do get it, you have to mate within 50 moves or the game is a draw.
The opponent’s king is driven into a corner. The bishops take two neighboring diagonals away from it, your king comes up, and together they push it first to the edge of the board and then into the corner.
You will not find this mate by trial and error; the technique has to be learned. Spend half an hour on it, then deliver the mate yourself five times.
Puzzles do not train this mate: the Bishop endgame theme collects endings where bishops and pawns are left on the board.
7. The bishop and knight mate
Of the mates you are expected to know this is the hardest, and it is rare. What matters most is the corner: mate is delivered in a corner of the color the bishop moves on, and the opponent’s king has to be driven there.
Remember that, and deliver the mate yourself once to see how it works. Up to 1700 it is not worth polishing the technique for hours.
The Knight endgame theme does not train it either: it holds endings with knights and pawns.
How to train endgames
These positions are learned differently from tactics: you have to play them out yourself.
- Set up a position, the Lucena for example, on a board. In analysis you can open it from its FEN.
- Play it for both sides: try to win it, and try to save it.
- Turn on the engine and see on which move you went wrong.
- Repeat a week later.
- And once more a month later.
Puzzles by theme: Pawn endgame, Rook endgame, Zugzwang.
Related
- How to grow from 1300 to 1700: the overall study plan, with 15% of the time given to endgames.
- Common chess mistakes at every level: weak endgame technique is one of them.
- Game analysis: play a position out here and check your moves against the engine.