Hardest Endgame to Win

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Avatar of EnergeticHay

Hey everyone, I was just wondering what do you think is the hardest endgame position or type of endgame to win? I personally feel that in general rook endgames are very complex and hard to play because every tempo counts, especially when both sides have a passed pawn. Let me know what your least favorite endgame is to play! happy.png

Avatar of 1c6O-1

mine are bishop and knight vs. king WAYTOOHARD

Avatar of Marty435

In general knight vs bishop is very unpleasant. I'd take bishop 9/10 times

Avatar of Magicalshoes

yeah knight vs bishop is tricky, even with only 1 pawn on the board

Avatar of Oliver_Prescott

king vs king

too hard to win

Avatar of llama

One of the hardest technical endgames is pawnless two bishops vs knight, when the weaker side is ideally placed.

Avatar of llama
EnergeticHay wrote:

Hey everyone, I was just wondering what do you think is the hardest endgame position or type of endgame to win? I personally feel that in general rook endgames are very complex and hard to play because every tempo counts, especially when both sides have a passed pawn. Let me know what your least favorite endgame is to play!

But rook endgames have a large drawing margin, so they're not very stressful, usually.

Compare to something like queen and pawn when even if it's a draw, it's extremely hard to play correctly.

Avatar of chessguy_888
EnergeticHay wrote:

Hey everyone, I was just wondering what do you think is the hardest endgame position or type of endgame to win? I personally feel that in general rook endgames are very complex and hard to play because every tempo counts, especially when both sides have a passed pawn. Let me know what your least favorite endgame is to play!

Most of them are pretty easy but the fact that there are so many makes it hard

Avatar of xitvono

Queen endings for sure. It can be almost impossible to calculate all the checks.

Avatar of UnsoundHero

King and Queen against King and Rook is one of the hardest to win. It takes around 40 moves to get the ideal position, which isn't far from the 50-move draw rule. I heard a rumor that Walter Browne once had this endgame and failed to win it, but can't verify if it's true.

Avatar of Dzindo07
xitvono wrote:

Queen endings for sure. It can be almost impossible to calculate all the checks.

I agree completely.

Avatar of pinkblueecho
UnsoundHero hat geschrieben:

King and Queen against King and Rook is one of the hardest to win. It takes around 40 moves to get the ideal position, which isn't far from the 50-move draw rule. I heard a rumor that Walter Browne once had this endgame and failed to win it, but can't verify if it's true.

 

Silman doesn´t even bother teaching it in his "complete" endgame course.

Avatar of EnergeticHay
llama wrote:

One of the hardest technical endgames is pawnless two bishops vs knight, when the weaker side is ideally placed.

True, those are pretty hard

Avatar of EnergeticHay
xitvono wrote:

Queen endings for sure. It can be almost impossible to calculate all the checks.

Some queen endgames aren't that bad, if you know the idea you don't need to calculate all of the checks perfectly. 

Avatar of Prometheus_Fuschs

Queen endgames with a pawn of advantage, there just are too many checks nervous.png

Avatar of Prometheus_Fuschs

KNNKP are crazy hard to win.

Avatar of mathninja20

It depends.

Hardest Elementary Endgame: B+N+K vs K is the hardest by far.

Hardest Pawnless Endgames: B+B+K vs. N+K, Q+K vs. R+K, R+K vs. N+K, R+K vs. B+K, R+B+K vs. R+K (The last three aren't even always theoretical wins; they are only wins in certain situations, so it depends on where the pieces are placed on the board.)

Hardest Endgames with Pawns: R+P+K vs. R+K, Q+P+K vs. Q+K

There are tons of checkmates, and I'm sure there are some theoretically won ones that are really wild, so wild that they become draws because of the 50-move rule and end up taking hundreds of moves to force a win. The ones I gave above are only the ones that are comparatively the most likely to happen in an actual game. These are the ones that I feel are very difficult or even impossible to win/draw, depending on which side you are playing and which situation the game is in (where all of the pieces are placed on the board).

 

Avatar of EnergeticHay
mathninja20 wrote:

It depends.

Hardest Elementary Endgames: B+N+K vs K is the hardest by far.

Hardest Pawnless Endgames: B+B+K vs. N+K, Q+K vs. R+K, R+K vs. N+K, R+K vs. B+K, R+B+K vs. R+K (The last three aren't even always theoretical wins; they are only wins in certain situations, so it depends on where the pieces are placed on the board.)

Hardest Endgames with Pawns: R+P+K vs. R+K, Q+P+K vs. Q+K

There are tons of checkmates, and I'm sure there are some theoretically won ones that are really wild, so wild that they become draws because of the 50-move rules and end up taking hundreds of moves to force a win. The ones I gave above are only the ones that are comparatively the most likely to happen in an actual game. These are the ones that I feel are very difficult or even impossible to win/draw, depending on which side you are playing and which situation the game is in (where all of the pieces are placed on the board).

 

I agree! What a detailed explanation happy.png

Avatar of Pawnhunter_7

KQ vs KR is far more difficult. For practical purposes, perhaps KRP vs KR and KNP vs KN are the most complicated a human player can expect to play well. KQP vs KQ does occur in practice, but is way too difficult. Other exotic endgames, like KRB vs KNN, are far more complex, but do not have any practical relevance.

Avatar of EnergeticHay

I agree