Essential endgames
Mixed training: random positions across every type — just like a real game, you won’t know what’s coming.
Kings face to face: whoever does NOT have the move has the opposition, and the other king must give way. Attacking, get your king in front of YOUR pawn; defending, keep the opposition to hold the draw.
Draw the pawn’s square: one side runs straight up from the pawn to its promotion square, the other sides complete it toward the defending king. If that king can step inside the square on its turn, it catches the runner. If you cannot catch it, do not chase — push your own pawn.
Pawn on the 7th with your king in front of it: build the bridge. Put the rook on your 4th rank (counting from your own back rank — three ranks behind your pawn on the 7th), walk the king out, then block the checks by interposing the rook.
Keep your rook on your third rank — the rank the enemy pawn will have to cross — until that pawn reaches it: the attacking king cannot make progress. The moment the pawn steps onto that rank, swing your rook to the far back for perpetual checks from behind.
Against a center or knight pawn on the 7th, zigzag checks force the king in front of its own pawn — each forced block buys a tempo to bring your king closer. Against a rook or bishop pawn it is a draw: know the difference.
Bishop and rook pawn: when the bishop does not control the promotion corner, the defending king simply runs to that corner and can never be evicted. Head for the corner — it is a fortress.
A rook pawn (a- or h-file) does not win if the defending king reaches its promotion corner: the attacker has no room to bring his own king out. Run to the corner and hold the draw.
The rook beats a lone pawn: stop the runner from a distance first, bring your king up, then win the pawn. A far-advanced rook pawn with its king alongside can draw — stay alert.
With opposite-colored bishops, even a pawn or two down the defender holds: blockade on squares of your own bishop’s color, which the enemy bishop can never touch.
Two bishops mate the lone king in any corner. Build a wall on adjacent diagonals, march your king up, and drive the enemy king into a corner.
The hardest basic mate: the king can only be mated in a corner of the bishop’s color. Drive it to the right corner with the knight’s W-manoeuvre, king and bishop helping.
Every pawn except the rook pawn has key squares: once your king stands on one, promotion is guaranteed no matter whose turn it is. For a pawn on ranks 2 to 4 they are the three squares two ranks ahead of it; from the 5th rank on, the three squares directly in front.
The passed pawn furthest from the action is not there to promote: it is there to drag the defending king away. While the defender runs to stop it, your king crosses over, collects the pawn left alone and wins the race.
Some positions are only won when it is the opponent’s move. Your king owns one more safe square than theirs: take a side step — three tempi where the defender only has two — and the same position returns with the defender to move. Zugzwang does the rest.
Pawns facing pawns, kings too far away: give up two pawns so the third one runs through. A breakthrough is not counted in material but in tempi — the only pawn that matters is the one that queens first.
Tarrasch’s rule: the rook belongs behind the passed pawn, yours and your opponent’s alike. Behind its own passer a rook gains activity with every push; placed in front, it blocks its own road and ends up chased away.
Your king stands in front of the pawn but the Philidor setup is out of reach? Two defenses still hold: the passive one (king on the promotion square, rook on the back rank) against rook and knight pawns; the short side (king on the narrow side, distant checks down the long file) against the rest.
An enemy rook pawn on the 5th or 6th with its rook in front: do not wait behind it. Your rook attacks the pawn from the side, along its rank — the enemy rook stays chained to guard duty, and when the king comes to relieve it, your side checks send it straight back.
Rook and pawn against rook with the pawn only on the 4th or 5th: the defense lives on distance. Your rook harasses from afar — three files at least — and the pawn never advances for free. One file closer, and the very same position is lost.
Your rook sits in front of your own a7-pawn: against a defense in good order that is a draw. But when the defending king is far away the win exists — a deflecting check drives its king off, the rook steps aside, and the pawn queens.
Blocked pawns, bare kings: every attacking square has its answering square. The king that enters on the right squares wins a pawn; the defender who answers square for square holds. And on mined squares, whoever steps forward first loses.
With equal structure, the move decides — and the move can be manufactured. A pawn kept back is a tempo in the bank: its push hands the opposition over at the moment of your choosing, and zugzwang switches sides on a single move.
Rook and two pawns against rook: two connected pawns advance together and win; f- and h-pawns do not beat the correct defense — king in front, rook active. That is the whole boundary: with the rook passive on the back rank, the same position is lost.
Rook versus bishop, no pawns: a book draw — provided the defending king reaches the corner opposite in color to its own bishop, with the bishop free to roam. A bishop reduced to interposing gets pinned and lost.
Rook versus knight: a draw as long as the knight stays under its king’s wing — the fork guards every approach. Cut off from its king, the knight gets hunted to the edge and trapped.
Queen against rook and pawn: there is a wall no queen can breach — a knight pawn, the king in touch, the rook shuttling alongside. The same wall with a bishop pawn collapses: the pawn’s file is the whole fortress.
Queen versus rook is won — by forcing the separation. Together, king and rook hold each other; the queen closes in taking squares away, zugzwang pries the rook loose, and the fork collects it.
An extra piece in the endgame means two jobs: the piece shuts down the enemy pawn, the king escorts your own. At club level nearly one contested endgame in five is decided exactly here — the single most profitable conversion to learn.
Verified positions from real games: find the move that wins the endgame. The theory above is exactly what these positions reward.
Verified positions from real games: find the move that wins the endgame. The theory above is exactly what these positions reward.
Verified positions from real games: find the move that wins the endgame. The theory above is exactly what these positions reward.
Verified positions from real games: find the move that wins the endgame. The theory above is exactly what these positions reward.
Exercises built from YOUR games (solved, missed) are part of ChessPivot Plus. Discover ChessPivot Plus
The idea
Most endgames funnel into a handful of canonical positions, and rook endgames alone account for roughly half of them. Knowing six patterns — opposition and key squares, the rule of the square, the Lucena bridge, the Philidor defense, queen against a far-advanced pawn and the wrong-colored bishop — converts wins you would have drawn and saves draws you would have lost. Every exercise here is engine-verified: play the position out against best defense, and any move that keeps the win (or holds the draw) is accepted.