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do I have to study the endgame?

do I have to study the endgame?

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bikingviking

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bikingviking

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On wich level do i have to be before I have to start study the endgame?
Right now I only study tactics and openings.
I have discovered that most endgames can be played with accurate calculation.
However I know that in some positions it is good to get a passed pawn and that you can use your forces to draw the enemy pices to the opposite side of the board.
However I have discovered that I do not like when the opponent plays "boring openings" (caro-cann, french, petroff) do to that the game seem to end up in a rather level endgame.

What do you think?
Is it useful to study endgames?

T
Blunder Grandmaster

Forked by a Knight

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All positions can be played with perfect calculation. There are numerous endgame scenarios where you would have to truly be a phenomenal tactician to be able to figure it out without already having a fundamental understanding of the themes involved in the position. There are also a number of them where one wrong move turns a winning position into a drawn one, or a drawn position into a loss.

It isn't popular to study endings for most people, but it is time well-spent to learn the more fundamental endings. You can learn the more esoteric ones once you are more rounded overall.

c

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Originally posted by bikingviking
On wich level do i have to be before I have to start study the endgame?
Right now I only study tactics and openings.
I have discovered that most endgames can be played with accurate calculation.
However I know that in some positions it is good to get a passed pawn and that you can use your forces to draw the enemy pices to the opposite side of the bo ...[text shortened]... m to end up in a rather level endgame.

What do you think?
Is it useful to study endgames?
I think studying the endgames is a very important part of improving your game. As you play more and more games, you'll find that some positions in the endgames have the tendency to occur quite frequently, and therefore it is good to know how to handle such positions. For example, you'll know that a king guiding his (rook or bishop) pawn on the 7th rank, against the enemy king & queen would most probably end up with a draw. Then it's also useful to know the theory about fighting for the opposition etc.

The knowledge about the endgame often has a bearing on the middlegame, because during the middlegame you can steer the game in the direction of a particular ending which you are familiar with.

Tactics and openings are equally important. But a lot of the times the games would go very far where only a few pieces and pawns are left. If you don't know enough, you'll find that you can lose very quickly in the endgame; or sometimes you'll end up with a draw even when you're supposed to win, because your opponent knows more!

D
Losing the Thread

Quarantined World

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It's not compulsory to study endgame technique - I doubt that your opponents will mind if you not aren't any good at it 😉. But, if you want to improve you'll need to; the endgame is almost all technique - grandmaster annotations often talk about the technical phase when discussing the end of a game. This stuff can be learnt in the same way that you can learn about opening theory. Being confident about your endgame helps you in the middle game because you have the extra option of going into endgame positions you know you can win or save, rather than having to find a purely middle game solution. If you work at it then you'll find that you get better results.

briancron
nunquam perdo

Washington, DC

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sorry if I am a broken record but if you get the personal chess trainer and do the endgame exercises you will have a really good handle on some endgame finesses that are the difference between wins and losses without reading or studying.

free demo is available

www.personalchesstrainer.com

I think studying endgames is more important than openings. I think you get into typical endgames more than you get into your specific opening preparation.

y

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the biggest mistake weak players make is underestimating the endgame-the complexitie sfor instance in apparently innocent/simple looking say pawn endgames is mind boggling,even Kasparov has missed wins in 'simple' endgames.

Christopher Lutz (2600+ GM) took DAYS of analsis to get to the truth about a 'simple' pawn endgame he played against Adams in Wijk aan Zee

S

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Game 2448766

What would/should you of done differently?

based on that - what might it be wise to study?

l

London

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Yes.

dsR

Big D

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You only have to study the endgame if you want to learn how to play chess correctly. Many have said that the endgame is the most important part of chess and I believe this to be true. Indeed, the greatest players of the game have also been masters of the endgame: Lasker, Capablanca, Rubinstein, Tartakower, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian, Fischer, Karpov, etc.

W
Angler

River City

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Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
You only have to study the endgame if you want to learn how to play chess correctly.
Well said.

Consider the recent World Championship.

Topalov marginally outplayed Kramnik in the opening.
Both players made blunders in complex middlegames.
Kramnik played model endgames.

Kramnik won.

c

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A couple of recent games on here and Playchess have convincingly proven to me that the endgame is extremely important - as a result I'm going through Pnadolfini's Endgame Course, and will follow that up with Dvoretski's Endgame Manual to be proficient in the endgame.

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