How should beginners study endgames?

I would never recommend spending money learning chess unless you are aiming to reach like 2300 FIDE. Danya has great videos on youtube. Basically a gold mine. Use it wisely and efficiently. Learn basic queen and rook endgames. And slowly implement pawn knight and bishop.

For me personally I find Knight and pawn endgames to be the trickiest.

Hello

Really? You are probably the only one who thinks so.

A knight ending is really a pawn ending

Mikhail Botvinnik

The knight endings are certainly trickier, but there are a lot of similarities with pawn endings, which are the simplest.

I guess you say that because you have watched some Danya video, but videos is not a good way to learn things, for the very same reason that you won't learn chemistry by attending a lecture and never going to the lab.

id be careful in lab. i had my sodium ring on once and went to rinse out a test tube.

and btw ? ...botvinnik didnt know what he was talkin abt. they can get extremely tactical. as knights have 'range'. the Lexington Lab has a huge repository on these. like 1000's.

heres one called Knight Ranger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azF0TyAptHo&list=RDazF0TyAptHo&start_radio=1

Solve end-game puzzles

Sure, a guy who was World Champion for 16 years and was directing the greatest Chess School ever "didnt know what he was talkin abt".

I would rather put my money on a second rate internet troll.

When it comes to endgames I think this is an effective approach.

1. An over all general plan of study. Cover the basic mates. Elementary pawn endings. Basic rook endings. Leave the rest for the future.

2. Specific positions? I think quality beats quantity. In other words, you are better off mastering fewer important positions than trying to memorize as many as possible.

Two books I like are:

Pawn Endings by Cvetkov (1985) I think.

Practical Rook Endings by Mednis (another oldie)

These are small, concise books (from when they still knew how to write chess books)

It's possible their Copyrights have expired. If so, you can download a pdf of them for free.

Hello

I think I have done well in lots of these this is so clear and shows what I need to do to improve. Very helpful, thank you!

at least 400 years then you can start playing yk

I have used Both Silman's Complete Endgame course and Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual and can recommend both but for beginner's Silman's is far more accessible.

Another resource available for free on Chessable is John Bartholomew's Essential R+P vs. R Endings.

I find that very helpful for R+P vs R with it covering some of the most essential positions.

An instructive position that just occurred in a game I played. Here the natural Kxe5 draws. Ke6 wins for white because it helps the white pawn promote and it avoids checks by the black rook.

I don't understand at all a move like Ke6 here.

Even if a computer told me it is best, I would still play Ke7. Why the hell this is inferior to Ke6?

Its not. Both win. Stockfish alternates between which it suggests as the search goes deeper. I don't have the tablebase to know which theoretically wins faster although Ke7 is the likely answer.

 :)