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Someone please help me with endgames. I suck

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User49578

1. Every Bartholomew's endgame video on YouTube.

2.

3. For advanced players.

playerafar

I liked that Josh Friedel one.
Very good points he's making.
And - brings me to making another point about Lucena positions.
Its not just 'getting to a Lucena position'.
It could be getting to a position even stronger and better than a Lucena.
But if you're getting to a position worse than a Lucena then you might not want to get into it - or trade down to it or whatever.
So its not just a Lucena 'coming up'.
Its also millions of positions worse or better than a Lucena.
Similiar with a Philidor's.
So you can use those classic positions for 'navigation and comparison' ...

and it might be better to say 'a Lucena postion' and 'a Philidor's position'
as there's Way more than one of each. Including by just reversing the colors or by reversing the position to a mirror image on the other side of the board. But there are others.

In a Philidor's white has over-extended his pawn at a bad time. Or is caused to.
And his King has no shelter from the rear because black has time to play his rook back - where white was prevented from having a sixth rank King by black's rook being on the sixth. Plus Black correctly has his King in front of the pawn.
In a Lucena Black cannot get his King in front of the pawn.

kotzi8953

I get a lot of trouble in endgames can someone give me suggestions

playerafar
kotzi8953 wrote:

I get a lot of trouble in endgames can someone give me suggestions

Take an easy route.
First - terminology.
Know what zugwang means. And stalemate.
You probably know both of them.
But if you do - then try something a little more advanced.

Like Trebuchet. Find out what it is.
And - you probably know what opposition is too.
But - find out why if you have a sixth rank King with K+P versus King - with your King on the square in front of the pawn - you win anyway. Whether its your move or not your move (opposition). Whether you've got the opposition or not - you win if your King is on its sixth rank. (which means there's only two ranks left)
That might be the Most Important Exception in all of chess.

There's another one. You can't win with an a or h pawn (rookpawn - also can be called an edgepawn) if your opponent can get his King in front of such a pawn. 
In K+P versus K. But that's not about Opposition. That's about rookpawns.
Hey you might beat him on the clock! happy

Point: know the basics (not that hard) before looking at fancy endgame positions.
Know them meaning understand don't memorize.

RussBell

search 'ending' or 'endgame' here...

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond.....

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

playerafar

some more terminology:
first - very basic:

passed pawn
isolated pawn
doubled pawns.

Most here would know what those are. 
But there are also other things to know about them.

More advanced:
Backward pawn.
Pawn lever. Open lever. Closed lever. Cross lever.
Pawn duo. Pawn trio.
Pawn chain.
Chain lever.
and finally pawn 'ram' (a term coined by Hans Kmoch)
'ram' is simply pawns of different colors up against each other and therefore both pawns are unable to move directly forward.

All of these things happen constantly in games. Including endgames.
The chain lever not so much. But its basic. 
So is the cross lever. (rarer but comes up)
Everyone here has probably seen all of these pawn formations many times.
But it doesn't 'hurt' to know what they're called.
And to understand more things about them.

playerafar

The wiki diagram and the chess.com diagrams for 'rule of the square' don't look that great.
Maybe there's a youtube for it.
The Magnus vid on it looks pointlessly complicated to me. And too particular.

While searching discovered this wonderful video by Igor Smirnov regarding Fischer's rule which indicates that if your opponent has a piece in your half of the board its a good idea to neutralize it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h4KLNqvLWw

But! - found a good vid on Square of the Passed Pawn by National Master Ramirez.
Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glLDHDxP9IYNeat. Simple. Well explained.

blueemu

There is a beautiful study by Reti illustrating "the square".

Black to play. White must find a way to draw.

playerafar

Hi @blueemu
Yes that's a very famous study.
Its a bit like that 'two weaknesses' idea mentioned in an earlier video in this forum.
Black has 2 weaknesses or potential weaknesses.
White might escort his pawn in for a Queen. Or catch Black's pawn using the 'zone'.

When arranging square arrangements of basic squares on the board there are 204 such arrangements.
In human perception a square's two longest diagonal lengths are obviously longer than its sides.
In math - a square's long diagonal is over 40% longer than its sides.
But in chess King-motion that diagonal is the same length as any side of the square - in number of moves.

Jur880

:tup