King Endgames

Contrary to the popular belief, there IS a way to win king endgames. Many believe, especially Articpolarbear the top 1 chaturaji player, that king endgames are just luck. However, there IS a strategy to win, and I will prove it. 

The first thing in order to win a king endgame is to determine the amount of points. I will only discuss 3 king endgames here because 4 king endgames are extremely rare. If wished upon, updating this forum to include 4 king endgames can certainly be possible. 

Say that in a certain endgame, Red has 27 points, Blue has 27 points, and Yellow has 22 points. 

The only way for Red to win is to force Blue into the corner in order to get him to sacrifice his king, and vice versa. 

Yellow cannot win, only going for 3rd here. 

So, how to force blue into the corner? 

https://www.chess.com/variants/chaturaji/game/91948284/180/1

After 47.g, the game is purely just kings. As you can see, Blue is in the corner and I am playing red. 

After 53.r, Green has made a mistake not keeping opposition and will be forced into the corner. However, for me (red), if green sacrifices to blue then i cannot win, and this is NOT what I want. 

55.r. The KEY point which many do not understand. Many players who don't know how to play will play Kf7, simply willing to get this game over with. However, Ke6 is the clear winning move here as we (me and green) force blue into the corner. By doing this, it has initiated a sort of "zigzag" pattern 

59.r The zigzag is broken. Now here, Green could technically break the pattern and force me into the corner, but he cannot win so keeping the opposition is in benefit to him as the game will end faster. Plus, I saved him from getting knocked out so there is no reason to. 

At 64.r, the game is concluded and this is how you win a king endgame using triangulation. 

if this information may seem a bit hard and dense to understand, its because it is. Even articpolarbear with 4k games in chaturaji still doesn't understand this mechanism. 

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my forum, and sorry for teasing @articpolarbear so much Mr. big bear. 

Super helpful!

I'm not sure how to calculate who will win (red or blue)... Is it just whoever knows how to do what you just described? Or whoever green sides with? I know you said it isn't luck.... But it seems like a bit of luck to me.

but when will there ever be just kings left? noobs will always blunder their pieces, and someone will end up with a few pawns or a rook. at least in my experience thats what happens.

I've had a handful of games end with just kings.

i don't play high rated games as often as most people do, but when i do i still dont ever see endgames like that

Bc u are 1400 and everyone sucks at 1400 level

At first I couldn't see what was wrong with Kf7... then I saw the points. I suppose the difference between you legends and us mere mortals is that you guys always play for first! It really is a beautiful endgame, now that I see the reasoning behind it.

oh yeah im 1400. i can consistently beat <2300, but for some reason my rating is locked at 11400. help me pls

you dont play for first?

I mean, almost always, but not always in a king endgame. It wouldn't have occurred to me NOT to play Kf7. I 100% would have, accepting that I would tie.

Thanks for this analysis, interesting if not humble (jk).

The key takeaway here is you want to box in the guy you're competing against for first, not the guy who's 3rd whatever happens.

This is quite obvious, but not always easy to do so a good demonstration here.

It gets more interesting if all can win, e.g. points are 27 27 27. Otherwise the player in third can basically decide who wins, e.g. you said green could have begun boxing you in instead of blue after 59.r

Agreed. I suppose we should try to make a greater effort to study Chaturaji endgame. We would all benefit from a better intuition for otherwise difficult or seemingly drawn positions.

i lost a 1st place to this strat