Lesson 7
Endgame basics
The endgame is the last part of the game. Most of the pieces have been traded off by now, and only a few are left on the board. Everything changes here. Your king stops hiding and joins the fight, and one small pawn can decide who wins.
Did you know? Computers have now solved every chess position that has seven pieces or fewer. In one of them White can force checkmate, but it takes 549 moves and looks like aimless shuffling almost the whole way. No human player has ever found anything like it over the board.
The king wakes up
All game long you have kept your king tucked away where it is safe. In the endgame you do the opposite. There are not enough enemy pieces left to hunt him down, so your king turns into a fighter, worth about as much as a knight or a bishop. The player who marches their king into the center first usually wins.
The opposition
When the two kings stand facing each other with exactly one square in between, whoever has to move is the one in trouble. Moving means stepping aside and letting the other king through. Winning that staring contest is called having the opposition, and it decides a huge number of pawn endings.
The rule to remember. Put your king in front of your pawn, not behind it. The pawn cannot promote on its own; the king has to clear the way first.
The square of the pawn
Can that king catch that pawn? There is a shortcut that saves you counting. Imagine a square whose corners are the pawn and its promotion square. If the enemy king can step inside that square, it catches the pawn. If it cannot, the pawn gets to the end and becomes a queen.
Four more endgame habits
- Put your rook behind a passed pawn, yours or theirs. Behind your own pawn the rook pushes it forward; behind theirs it holds the pawn back and gets stronger as the pawn advances.
- Passed pawns must be pushed. A pawn that nothing can stop is worth more than a piece in many endings.
- Do not rush. With few pieces left there is usually no danger, so improve your king first and push pawns second.
- Watch for stalemate when you are winning, and hope for stalemate when you are losing.
Where to go next. The mating techniques on the Basic checkmates page (king and queen, king and rook) are endgames too, and they are the ones you will need first.