Endgame Essentials
The endgame positions every player has to know, with exact results: when it is a win, when it is a draw, and the one move that decides.
A handful of endgame positions come up again and again, and knowing them turns a lot of half-points into points. Most of them have few pieces, so their results are known exactly: a tablebase has worked out every position with up to seven pieces.
Each lesson gives the position, the method, and a checklist of the conditions it needs, each shown with the move that keeps the result and one that throws it away. Then the method move by move and positions to solve.
Lessons
- 1The Lucena Position: Building a BridgeRook and pawn against rook, with your pawn on the seventh and your king in front of it. The win is a technique: cut the defending king off, put the rook on the fourth rank, walk the king out, and block the last check.
- 2The Philidor Position: the Third-Rank DefenceRook and pawn against rook, with your king in front of the pawn: a draw, if you know how. Keep the rook on the third rank until the pawn advances, then go to the back rank and check from behind.
- 3The Opposition and Key SquaresKing and pawn against king is won or drawn by a single tempo. Learn the key squares your king must reach, how the opposition gets it there, and how the defender uses the same idea to hold the draw.
- 4Rooks Behind Passed PawnsRooks belong behind passed pawns, your own and your opponent's. Behind its own pawn a rook gains room as the pawn advances; in front of it, the rook is stuck. With the exceptions every player should know.
- 5Opposite-Coloured Bishops: the FortressWith bishops on opposite colours, even two extra pawns are often not enough. Learn the defender's fortress: the king on squares the enemy bishop cannot touch, the bishop on one diagonal in front of the pawns.
How these lessons were checked
Every position with up to seven pieces is checked against the Lichess endgame tablebase, which knows its exact result. A move shown as working keeps the best result available, a win or a draw; a move shown as failing throws it away. Every exercise has one answer: the only move that keeps the result, or, where several do, the only one that makes progress without losing time (by the tablebase's count of moves to the next pawn move or capture). The number under the board is the exact result, not an engine estimate.