Guess I'll post it here...

Hi everyone. If I am breaking any kind of rule by posting in this section please let me know, I was not able to find a more apropriate one. I'm a complete newbie to chess, started my study about a month ago here on chess.com. I'm currently rated ~1200 and playing more and more made me realise I am seriously weak in endgames, both in using my pawns (e.g. in those games where you have both sides tied with king plus X pawns I always seem to lose, not being able to push for promotion) and in actually checkmating in an uncrowded board, even when I have material superiority. Take as example my last game, which i lost a few minutes ago: https://www.support.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1720614965 - it is only really relevant from move 60 on. So my actual question is: Can you point me to good, free, online resources (preferably tablet/smartphone apps) that contain actual lessons on this subject? Thank you. AF

Looks like you're already here. I think you get 1 free lesson per day but you can play out the learning positions as often as you would like.

The game you ask about isn't an endgame issue, just basic tactics and technique. I'll post some positions from your game as puzzles. See if you can find a better move than what you played in the game.

Tip: when winning, trade pieces (not pawns).

codeman all over it.

af, i hope this thread takes off for you, as there are some fine players on this site that can really help.

good luck.

Typing on my mobile so sorry for any mistakes.

Wow my binary friend! You really ilustrated your point and i thank you a lot for it. It was not until i revisited the game with your puzzles that i uunderstood i missed many mate opportunities due to poor tactical judgement. I was under intense time pressure for my skill level at that point in the game, and i wanted to avoid trading beacause i knew i would have an hard time mating with my queen alone. I also didn't opt for pushing pawns due to time constraints.

Anyway you just provided significant evidence that i should take the time to analyse my games after i play them.

Having seen my typical game what is your advice for me at this point: should i focus on playing games and tactics puzzles alone or should i go for reading material on openings, strategy, ebdgames,etc?

Thanks

@AlkinKing, yeah but it sucks i can only do one lesson a day (not that i can complain it being free and all).

@AlCzervik. Yep, This repply was very strong motivation. Its unbelievable the amount of effort someone put into helping a random stranger, once again thanks a lot!

My advice for openings is to use a database to casually check the opening moves masters chose when they had the same opening positions. This isn't to memorize 20 moves deep in a dozen variations of course (what some players attempt to do with books) but with repetition you'll eventually learn the usual opening moves.

As for strategy vs endgame, learn whatever seems interesting to you. If you're interested in books, Seirawan's Winning Chess series is good (that series has a book on endgames as well as a book on strategy).

If you want to improve, tactic puzzles, playing, and analysis are the main things IMO. If you do nothing else, do that.

Oh, and I'm glad you found it useful