This was a question that was posed:
I lost to a pretty good player this weekend. He said that I should study endgame if I want to get better.
I just don’t get why I should study endgame. If I can’t survive the middlegame or the opening, how would endgame help me?
This is a very common question among amateur. How would you answer it?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
This is a question I’ve struggled with in the past. Here’s my take on it:
Study endgames to avoid being checkmated! Study the middle-game to avoid being put into an endgame of your opponent’s chosing!
I’ve found that working a couple of different openings to avoid being destroyed early is a good thing, but as Susan says, the middle and end games are key!
I love the endgame and I can think of many reasons why I consider its study important. Here are 10 of them.
1. If you have an endgame advantage in the middle game, you can win the game without any risk by going into the endgame.
2. Endgame teaches you the strengths and weakness of each piece. You will know how to use them better (Smyslov)
3. Endgame is like mini chess. When you master coordinating limited pieces, you get better at coordinating the whole army
4. Endgame improves you strategic thinking. In the endgame you have an objective (to queen the pawn, for instance). You learn how to pursue this objective with the help of tactics.
5. Endgame improves calculation skills. In endgame calculation a lot of times it is a straight line calculation (as opposed to branches in tactics). Calculation without alternatives will in turn improve your tactical calculation.
6. If you have a reputation as being good in the endgame, your opponent may refuse to go into the endgame even though they would have had an advantage in the endgame.
7. If your opponent has a great attack you can always oppose him by threatening to exchange pieces especially the Queen.
8. If you are a good endgame player, all you need is to win one pawn in the middle game..The rest is a matter of technique :-). Two pawns are like a slam dunk.
9. Endgame increases your understanding of chess and lays an excellent foundation. In the endgame you learn to appreciate little subtleties. I read that the endgame requires a surgeon’s touch. This appreciation of subtleties will go a long way in your middle game.
10. Finally, the endgame will help you win more games…because after the middlegame there is the endgame, but after the endgame there is only the shaking of hands…
Hope this helps.
-VV
Wow, well said vvchess.
The only thing to add is that losing what should be a “won or drawn” endgame, is far more frustrating and discouraging than to give away a pawn or even a piece early on. As my dad said “better to get behind early since there is more time to catch up later.”
I think the person who asked the question has a good point. I think his time is better spent on openings and middlegame, unless the reason he’s losing in the opening and middlegame is because he has a endgame anxiety:that is he’s doing all he can to avoid the endgame and in the process destroying his position.
I remember I was playing this tournament game. must have lasted 7 hours. and finally I had the win.
I was down to King and Bishop and he had only the King left.
Then everyone standing around watching the ending told me it was a draw. that I could not win with the king and bishop. I almost dropped off my chair. I was so disappointed.
It never has happened to me again. when I get down toward the end I like to keep some pawns now.
There is no point surviving the opening and the middlegame, if you are sure to die in the endgame.
I would imagine that as a player improves, the number of games decided in the endgame increases significantly, and it is probably easier to learn to avoid early checkmates and material losses than to become skilled in the endings. I am also beginning to see that choices made in the opening and ending have major implications for the endgame, so knowing some endgame principles will help a person improve in the other phases of the game, too.
“There is no point surviving the opening and the middlegame, if you are sure to die in the endgame.”
Your opponent might resign or flag before the endgame though.
There is no need to learn the endgames, because there are so little number of pieces and you can calculate it without problems. Openings only. If you don’t know the opening, you will lose in 10 moves. If you know how to move the pieces, you will have no problem in the middlegame, if you follow Steinitzes rules for the strategy, and use your brain to figure out what to do.
well lets put it this way, the openings are more memory than anything els but in the end game when the board is less empty you need to calculate correctly, and this is possible because end games are like that.the end game probably wont teach you much, but it will leave you with an intuative growth !