Endgame vs Opening

Of course you need both.

After 1. e4 what is the best move? After 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6  3. Nf3 what's the best move? It's impossible to say. I think the opening is more forgiving if you don't know the main lines.

Knowing the endgames help if you think in terms of steps and work backwards. Master each step and then move on to learn the step that comes before it. In a way these are long combinations where you string together ideas instead of forcing moves.

end stage mate with king and queen

end stage -1 safely queen a pawn

end stage -2 remove the obstacles that prevent your pawn advancing to the queening square, OR use the passed pawn as a decoy while you win pawns on another side of the board.

end stage -3 create a passed pawn

end stage -4 trade down

end stage -5 win a pawn 

end stage -6 create a solid position

The deeper you know endgame concepts the easier the middlegame becomes. You know exactly what to aim for and what pieces to exchange. You don't have to rely on your opponent missing a tactic.

Two books I would recommend: Positional Chess Handbook by Gelfer and Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky. The former gives you multiple examples of the same kind of position so you can learn the patterns. The latter gives you a strategic framework so you learn what kind of moves to be looking for and which steps come first.

Couldnt you find any smaller print ?!

I would say, endgame is more important to know well assuming you are against a player of equal skill and can avoid traps.

the reason being, that knowing endgame, teaches you how to use multiple pieces in conjunction and how they are effective, which also helps your middle game, avoid traps in openings (i.e. knowing how to mate with 2 bishops, can also teach you how to trap a queen with two bishops, also pinning a piece to the king to allow a promotion can be used in the same way to snatch another piece in the early game with a pawn etc etc). The *basic* principles of openings are easy enough to learn, and should allow you to get to middle game without being down in material verse anyone even if they have memorized openings

the two mistakes rookies fall into are, imho, memorizing heaps of openings, and memorizing traps. both don't teach you the heart of chess and both are boring so may discourage you from continuing. i guess some people said that openings are interesting, i don't think they are, but if you do, then by all means study those, because whatever is interesting will make you play for longer, which means you will be better in the long run. if you spend forever studying end game and you find it boring, you may just decide to stop playing as much,

Openings and tactics to the exclusion of everything else are able to take you pretty far, especially if you have a bit of natural talent that helps you fill in endgames and strategies etc without specifically having to work on them.  Because an early mistake can lose the game immediately endgame mastery by itself may or may not take you quite as far (although you could simply adopt an opening system), but all one dimensional players hit tough rating walls.  If you're super talented you'll be titled before it happens, if you're an average player you won't make it to 2000.  So like tonydal said study them both -- it's not like you can only choose one.

As a bonus, the more you know the more fun chess is.  If you only have ideas about what's going on for half the game (whether you only know openings, or endgames, or tactics, or strategy), then try to suffer through the rest until you can start a new game you're missing out -- not only on fun but probably also missed wins/draws too.

I think alot of people not giving credit to openings are wrong. The opening makes sure you will get a playable middlegame or even with an advantage if your opponent has no clue what he is doing in the opening. Not only that, the opening you play will give you clear middle game plans. Openings are very important for the middle game, so saying "middle game is all that matters" is wrong because you reach that middle game with certain plans because of the opening you play. You need to understand that. Then of course the endgame is important too, if you have no clue how to convert that 1 pawn advantage you're not going to win.

What I'm saying is that it is quite naive to belive any part of the game can be ignored to get better. You'll improve faster if you work on ALL of the phases of the game. Why? Because only training tactics for example to  get better will result in diminishing returns. It's true that extreme tactical ability will win even if you suck at openings or endings BUT that does not mean it is the shortest way to improvement. You might improve your game alot faster by training a little of everything even if theoretically tactics > everything else (why computers win even without endgame tablebases or opening books against you)

Actually, in my games, rarely I reach a very tricky endgame position. In most of the cases I didn't feel the need of a better study of this matter (just sometime the theory of king and one pawn endgame has been useful).  I mean, usually in endgames the play is quite clear. The problem of "what to do" is much more in the opening and middlegame, for me. What is the need of a endgame study if you don't survive the previous steps? Anyway this just regards me... of course it's different for master games.

Yeah, I've also have had to review some endgames that I forgot after never using them in a real game.

Great post, alot of information to retain. So should someone knew to the game start learning variations and tactics or just play and play and play to obtain knowledge and try new ideas without worrying about ratings? Should ratings only be of a concern when a person reaches a certain level?

Thank you. :)

Your welcome.

Not talking to you only, quoted because I think it represents a lot of players feelings about endgames, specifically that you don't often (or ever) reach tricky/technical endgames so it's not needed.

You may not know how much you're missing though.  I often load up a rook endgame with symmetrical pawn structure (all rook endgames are drawn right) or an opposite bishop ending vs a computer (don't cheat by watching evaluation/thinking lines) and if I'm careless after a few inaccuracies it crushes me... how could I possibly lose an opposite bishop ending?  I turned off my brain when I thought it was a fortress and stopped paying attention. 

My point is endgames are the least forgiving in terms of 2nd best moves, just because your opponents don't punish you doesn't mean you wouldn't have lost the game 5 different times against a strong player.

I think many players have an opening understanding which is significantly developed to the detriment of other parts of their game.

I have lost count of the number of times I've played somebody who  functioned like a machine in the opening, before going to make a simple tactical/strategic error later in the game and handing me the game on a plate.  Every time this happens I wonder why they didn't spend more time with their glaring weaknesses.  I think opening memorisation can be a false sense of security, and people tend to think that getting a good position out of the opening will win the game for them.

I'm going back to endgame basics right now (a seriously neglected part of my game), and I'm finding that having to figure out how to play some of these endgames does wonders for my entire chess understanding.

That is so true! thanks for posting that!

The truth is not quite that simple.

1. 99% of times people will hand you the game by "making a simple tactical/strategic error later in the game" even if they didn't play the opening like a machine. The only difference is that their starting point was probably even worse. So that statement does not really refute the usefulness of knowing your opening.

2. Learning and knowing an opening (with the ability to also play them like a machine) is not just knowing moves but also understanding the middle game and even endgame it leads to. You can try to convince yourself that it is "not that important" but you will always be one step behind someone of equal playing strength if you simply ignore the opening phase of the game.

3. Endgames are important ofcourse because you understand how the pieces move and act in a more isolated context. Openings are for the same reason useful. Because then you understand where all your pieces should go and why since you will see the reason in the middle game.

My point was that I get the impression that these guys are spending so much of their time memorising opening lines that they are to some degree neglecting tactics, etc.

So, do you prefer endgame or opening? It sounds like you like both. Anyway, memorizing openings isn't chess anymore, it's just remembering where pieces move in a given order. Of course you do need to know some openings, but when you become obsessed with them, then you're in trouble.

That is true. Opening knowlege alone will not magically win you games in the long run, you need to be a complete player (in form of tactics, strategy and technique) to be able to progress.

I like both, yes. Both are important but I think it depends on who you are. If you are a beginner (really beginner) endgames are more important because you learn how each piece moves and coordinates without alot of other clutter on the board but once you get past that I would say understanding of openings you play is slightly more important. That will win you more games at that stage then superb endgame knowlege. That is my guess. Because if you have a clear plan from the opening it is much more likely that your opponent will end up in a mess in the middle game and simply lose so much material that you do not need any endgame technique to even win that (except how to mate with a single rook ofc). And once you get past that level, like a class C+ player you'll need both at equal amounts imo.

Your statement is so logical, that I'm really mixed up. What you said about your opponent being messed up coming into the late middlegame and endgame because he may not know the openings like you do; well, Josh Waitzkin said that when he played in tournaments in his teens, he was never good with the openings, and would always go into the middlegame down 2 or 3 points because he played opponents who only studied opening traps, and so they were helpless when they played him in the middlegame and endgame, and he ended up always beating them.