Endgame Study Plan | April 12th, 2025

For a decently long time, I have been trailing: all of my three stats were inconsistent: maybe one or two would be over 2000 and the other would be 1900-ish. It's really rare for me to have all three main time controls at 2000+, but welp, here we are.

Today was a very nice day, and I didn't really played that much chess. I took a hiatus in blitz, and I didn't see any more reason to grind it, so now, I'm grinding rapid and bullet. I quickly got bullet to 2000 (11 wins, 1 draw, 5 losses), gaining a total of +54 elo, and then the afternoon, I played three rapid games, which is enough to push me from 1987 to 2006 (2 wins, 1 draw). So yeah, today was a really ideal day, I basically had nothing to say, nothing bad to report.

I do want to add that I started an endgame study plan! After all these months of me complaining about how absolutely terrible I am at endgames, I've finally decided to act. I've gotten my hands on three books:

• Endgame Play (Grandmaster Preparation) by Jacob Aagard (renowned chess author)
• Theory and Practice of Chess Endings 1 & 2 by Alexander Panchenko (I've literally never heard any recommendations of this other than a Reddit comment XD)

I plan to finish (actually, probably restart, it's been so long since I've last touched that book) Shreshevsky's Endgame Manual, basically one of the cornerstone of practical chess. I find myself to be completely lacking in terms of practical endings, and I understand that if I do want to improve, I would have to act upon my endgames and converting.

Other than the books, I found some amazing videos that I plan to watch, all about endgames. I struggle the most on pawn endgames and rook endgames (just like most amateurs), and I want to share the resources with you, also with me, just so I can comeback to this blog and check on my resources.

• GMNeiksans Boot Camp #1: Rook Endgames
• GMNeiksans Boot Camp #2: Rook & Bishop
• GMNeiksans Boot Camp #23: Pawn Endgames
• Daniel Naroditsky's Collection of Endgame Videos

GMNeiksans Boot Camp has been a goldmine when I first discovered it, and honestly, I haven't gone back: when I actually focus on consuming the three-hour stream, he drops the most valuable, down-to-earth honest advices in a very constructive and instructive manner, and it helps amateurs of all level understand the theory. Meanwhile, Daniel Naroditsky is just a renowned educational content creator: no clickbait, no brilliant icons on his thumbnails, no eye-catchy titles, just pure, educational chess. And he is one of the best at conveying the ideas to the listener too, basically just cementing himself as one of the most reputable chess teachers out there.

I would love to see if anybody, if you just so happen to read this blog, can share other helpful resources on endgames, preferably Youtube tutorials as I already have enough endgame chess books on my hand and I plan to consume them one by one. We're all in this chess journey together, and hopefully we will all improve as a chess community :D

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