Endgame Masterclass

“In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else. For whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and opening must be studied in relation to the end game.”

-Jose Capablanca

The game of chess consists of three phases- 

1- Openings 

2- Middle game

3-End game

My blogs have always been focusing on the Opening stage. Today you will witness and learn the most common mating pattern in the Endgames.

Here is what we are going to learn-

Mating with,

1- Rook and king.

2- Queen.

3- Queen against pawn about to promote.

4-Two rook ladder. 

5- Two bishops. 

6- Knight and bishop. 

So let's start our journey with a quote from endgame GOAT GM Magnus Carlsen himself.

“Self-confidence is very important. If you don’t think you can win, you will take cowardly decisions in crucial moments, out of sheer respect for your opponent. You see the opportunity but also greater limitations than you should. I have always believed in what I do on the chessboard, even when I had no objective reason to. It is better to overestimate your prospects than underestimate them.”

-Magnus Carlsen

Before starting, I want to clarify that your position will differ in your game but the idea will be the same as I show.

Let us start with the easy and most common one-

1- Two rook mate
Here the idea is to place a rook one diagonally next to the other and then move them like a ladder for a mate. Here is what it looks like,

But wait, what if the king is much closer to one of the rooks then how would the ladder work? For instance like here,

Well, to provide ladder rooks don't have to be close to each other they can move to the other side and continue the same process as shown below,

Let's see your Rook endgame now,

The Queen Endgame-

Here you have to bring your king next to the opponent king and then check them with the queen and push them back to the edge.

The second step is, Once the king is on the edge, stop its mobility by keeping the queen on the next phile or rank in the corner.

The third step is to bring close to the next king and finally mate him. Here is what it looks like.

Rook and King end game-

This is one of the easiest. You have to move the king and rook together and make the opponent king at the corner or edge of the board.
Here is what it looks like.

Queen Vs pawn about to promote-
This is a critical type of end game where one mistake would either result in a loss or a draw. But now, after learning here you would know that and win.

STEP 1-
Keep giving checks bringing the queen closer till the king goes below pawn.

STEP 2-
Now as the king goes below the pawn, He will need two moves to promote. We will take this tempo by bringing our king close to his pawn.

STEP 3-
Repeat this process till your king reaches the pawn 

STEP 4- 
Take the pawn with the queen and win this end game.

Bishop and knight against the king-
This is a tricky endgame since if you lose tempo here, You might probably have to draw by 50 move rule.
According to Google, there are 6 Different patterns you should know -

I will make it simpler for you here,
There are two methods here 
1- Triangles Method
2- W-Method

Triangles Method-
Personally, I feel this one is difficult to understand and I won't suggest you this one because you need a lot of understanding about squares you will and have to control.
If you feel this is easier you can go for this-

The first thing here to understand is which color bishop you have. The mate will be possible only in that diagonal corner. For instance, if you have a light square bishop, your mating corner will be a8 and h1 and if it is a dark square, then it will be a1 and h8.

STEP 1-
The first step is to restrict Black's King to one of the yellow triangles we see on the board in this position. We will control the long diagonal of the triangle with our Bishop, and we will control the necessary dark squares using our Knight and King.
Move your King closer to the center.

As we move king to centre triangles get smaller,

Smaller triangle-

STEP 2-

White now controls the center. When Black can't stay in the center, they will usually try to move toward the wrong corner (h8 in this case). We develop our pieces by staying in the center.

Now it's important to cover key squares which help to force the opponent king to either corner or edge of the board.

This is how we restrict oppenent king

Here Bd5 was waiting move since we dont want our opponent to stay on 8th rank.

STEP 3- 
Here comes the positional understanding you have to play moves such that the opponent king cannot cross the diagonal. Then we start shrinking the triangle slowly.

Now comes the part where we restrict king mobility.

Bc4 is a waiting move. You have to understand that at the moment when your pieces don't need to move and the opponent is restricted you have to play waiting move so they themself get into the mating zone.

Now here as the triangle is smaller we find mating pattern,

This requires you lot of precision, and for sure in a Timed match, you won't have time to see triangles and diagonals unless you have played and practiced it. The next method is quite easy. I use it in situations if I ever get stuck.

W-Method-

The first step is similar to bringing the king to the center and pushing the opponent king to the edge of the board. Let us see this study to understand it better. 

For this, i will try to explain in detail,

As Daniel Naroditsky says here bishop is close quarter combatant and knight is perimeter defender
So this is position we have,

Now we try pushing king,

As you see here we completed step one bringing the king on back rank.

W concept-

Now w is the method used to move the king to a desirable corner. Since we know we have a light square bishop opponent will move to the opposite side near the dark square corner. In this situation we use W- Method here Knight moves in a w pattern and for understanding it better, we can start making W from a diagonal square from where the mate will occur and the endpoint is where your knight should be.