Chess Endgames 101

Hi Friends!

Continuing our Introduction to Chess series, I've made two videos to help you finish your games. In my opinion, endgames are the foundation of chess. As the great World Champion José Raúl Capablanca said:

"In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else."

In most beginner games, the game will come down to a situation with very few pieces left. The person who promotes a pawn to a queen first usually wins. To do that though, you need to know how to mate with just a king and a queen. Learn how in the video below.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/f36822_b054fb4f24f945ebb81240140a519ec3/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Another fairly common situation is one where you have two queens, a queen and a rook, or two rooks. While there are many approaches to do this, I recommend the ladder approach, as it is a reasonably straightforward process to finish the job! Learn about it in the video below.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/f36822_b835c5c98e30445cb917643e83d4501e/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

I encourage you to get lots of practice with these basic endgame mating patterns either online or over the board because even if you understand it conceptually, doing it in practice, consistently, makes a huge difference in your path to mastery.

That's all for today! See y'all next time! Sarang out.