See Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual.

"Dr. David Kirkby" wrote:

What are the most useful endings to study in chess? My rating on ICC
is ~1350. I recently drew a game when I had a queen vs a knight, which
I now know was winable. However, it is very hard to win against best
play, and as someone has pointed out, it's probably not worth worrying
about, as its of little practical value.

Hence I'm wondering in what order should I study chess endings. I have
no trouble with queen vs king, or rook vs king, and have a basic
understanding of the 'key squares' when trying to promote pawns, so
have some reasonable chance of getting a pawn home.

I'm just wondering what endings are worth studying, and what are best
left for a move advanced player. For example, is rook vs queen worth
worrying about ? I suspect not, as I gather that can be shown to be a
win for the side with the queen (assuming the side with the rook can't
immediately take the qeeen), but again its a very hard win. Two king
+ 2 x bishops vs king is winable I gather, but again is a very hard
win.

I have the book 'Secrets of pawn endings' forward by Jophn Nunn, but I
find it heavy going. I do certainly learn from it, and there is no
doubt it has helped me queen some pawns that would have otherwise not
been queened.

Any thoughts ?

What are the most useful endings to study in chess? My rating on ICC
is ~1350. I recently drew a game when I had a queen vs a knight, which
I now know was winable. However, it is very hard to win against best
play, and as someone has pointed out, it's probably not worth worrying
about, as its of little practical value.

Hence I'm wondering in what order should I study chess endings. I have
no trouble with queen vs king, or rook vs king, and have a basic
understanding of the 'key squares' when trying to promote pawns, so
have some reasonable chance of getting a pawn home.


I think David Kirby hit it on the head. Find whatever book is clearest to you,
whether it's Kmoch, Pandolfini, Seirawan or whoever -- a little book that stuck
with me over the years was Cvetkov's "Pawn Endings" (Chess Enterprises, 1985)
but YMMV -- and learn the basics. (Or maybe this is the step just above the
basics.)

Think of it logically...are you more apt to win a piece or a pawn during the
game? Probably a pawn. So K+P and R+P will be the most common and the most
helpful. Master these and you're ahead of probably 90% of the players you'll
face.

My opinion on books: the best chess book in the world won't help unless it
speaks to you. Likewise, we can learn from any book if it touches the
particular nerve that is exposed. This means three things: 1) You have to go
through an enormous number of books to find the right ones; 2) You can learn
from a book at a later point, even if it didn't make sense previously; that is,
you'll "get" it when you're ready for it, and so 3) You should never get rid of
a chess book, no matter how unworthy it may seem.

Kyle Word

"Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say
what you've got to say, and say it hot." -- D.H. Lawrence

"Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge" by Averbakh is a good place to
start. I agree.Also check out I.M.Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy.If you can
get the Paul Keres "Practical Chess Endings" that was also recommended you will
improve.

On 17 Apr 2004 20:58:10 GMT, illspam
(NoMoreChess) wrote:

I have to note that, although the advice given here by "Jud" is perfectly
sound, some of the works he listed are a bit advanced for
beginners/intermediate players.

That's why I listed them in groups according to level.

---
Replace you know what by j to email

On 17 Apr 2004 07:57:51 -0700,
(Dr. David Kirkby)
wrote:

What are the most useful endings to study in chess? My rating on ICC
is ~1350. I recently drew a game when I had a queen vs a knight, which
I now know was winable. However, it is very hard to win against best
play, and as someone has pointed out, it's probably not worth worrying
about, as its of little practical value.

Hence I'm wondering in what order should I study chess endings. I have
no trouble with queen vs king, or rook vs king, and have a basic
understanding of the 'key squares' when trying to promote pawns, so
have some reasonable chance of getting a pawn home.

I'm just wondering what endings are worth studying, and what are best
left for a move advanced player. For example, is rook vs queen worth
worrying about ? I suspect not, as I gather that can be shown to be a
win for the side with the queen (assuming the side with the rook can't
immediately take the qeeen), but again its a very hard win. Two king
+ 2 x bishops vs king is winable I gather, but again is a very hard
win.

I have the book 'Secrets of pawn endings' forward by Jophn Nunn, but I
find it heavy going. I do certainly learn from it, and there is no
doubt it has helped me queen some pawns that would have otherwise not
been queened.

Any thoughts ?

Study King and pawn endings first (because they form the basis of all
other piece and pawns endings) then study rook and pawn endings
(because they occur more frequently than all other endings).

Check out the book "Fundamental Chess Endings", which did a
statistical analysis of how frequently endings of each type occur.
They used BigBase2001, which has 1.6 million games.

For players of your level I would expect far fewer games to reach then
ending, but still the predominanance of rook and pawn endins seems to
hold.

I searched 1127 games with both players in the 1150 to 1650 range. I
found 72 king and pawn endings, 108 rook endings, 23 bishop endings,
40 knight endings, 36 bishop vs. knight endings,16 queen endings, 36
rook vs. minor piece ending and 13 pawnless endings.

All of the pawnless endings but one were ones with simple mates (e.g.
rook & king vs. king, queen & king vs. king). The one non trivial
ending was a rook+knight+bishop vs rook where the side with the lone
rook kept "threatening" to trade rooks so that the superior side would
have to mate with a bishop and knight; the game was drawn.

WRT to the importance of studying rook and pawn endings:
I looked over a sampling of the endings that I found of these type.
There were many examples of the inferior side failing to find the
drawing move and the superior side failing to find the win; sometimes
there were multiple examples in the same game.

As far as learning the other endings goes, what I do is to only bother
about a particular type of ending when it has occurred in one of games
AND I played it badly (e.g. failed to find the winning plan when I was
superior or failed to find the drawing resource when I was inferior).
Then I study that opening thoroughly so that if it ever comes up again
I know what to do.

Mike Ogush
USCF 1961

(Mike Ogush) wrote in message ...
On 17 Apr 2004 07:57:51 -0700,
(Dr. David Kirkby)
wrote:

What are the most useful endings to study in chess? My rating on ICC
is ~1350. I recently drew a game when I had a queen vs a knight, which
I now know was winable. However, it is very hard to win against best
play, and as someone has pointed out, it's probably not worth worrying
about, as its of little practical value.



As far as learning the other endings goes, what I do is to only bother
about a particular type of ending when it has occurred in one of games
AND I played it badly (e.g. failed to find the winning plan when I was
superior or failed to find the drawing resource when I was inferior).
Then I study that opening thoroughly so that if it ever comes up again
I know what to do.

Mike Ogush
USCF 1961


Well, on that basis I should learn the king + queen vs king + knight,
since

a) It occured in one of my games (I had the queen) AND
b) I played it badly (it was drawn).

But I guess time spent practicing this might not be time well spent if
the ending is quite rare, as others have said it is. Can your software
show how many such endings (queen + king vs knight + king) occured?
I've played a couple of hundred games on ICC and only had it occur
once that I can recall, so on that basis is must be pretty rare.

On 20 Apr 2004 15:55:27 -0700,
(Dr. David Kirkby)
wrote:

(Mike Ogush) wrote in message ...
On 17 Apr 2004 07:57:51 -0700,
(Dr. David Kirkby)
wrote:

What are the most useful endings to study in chess? My rating on ICC
is ~1350. I recently drew a game when I had a queen vs a knight, which
I now know was winable. However, it is very hard to win against best
play, and as someone has pointed out, it's probably not worth worrying
about, as its of little practical value.



As far as learning the other endings goes, what I do is to only bother
about a particular type of ending when it has occurred in one of games
AND I played it badly (e.g. failed to find the winning plan when I was
superior or failed to find the drawing resource when I was inferior).
Then I study that opening thoroughly so that if it ever comes up again
I know what to do.

Mike Ogush
USCF 1961


Well, on that basis I should learn the king + queen vs king + knight,
since

a) It occured in one of my games (I had the queen) AND
b) I played it badly (it was drawn).


I neglected to include that I also factor in the relative rarity of
the ending. If you had unlimited time to study chess then studying a
queen vs. knight ending might make sense, but since most people don't
it is valuable to prioritize. I would favor studying an ending that
has occurred multiple times in my games over one that has occurred
only once. I prefer to look at the probability that an ending would
occur in my game vs., the probability that it would occur in master
games so I look through the collection of my games to see how many
games had endings of each type.

But I guess time spent practicing this might not be time well spent if
the ending is quite rare, as others have said it is. Can your software
show how many such endings (queen + king vs knight + king) occured?
I've played a couple of hundred games on ICC and only had it occur
once that I can recall, so on that basis is must be pretty rare.

The software that I use to find games with particular endings is
Chessbase 8. I search for matching material feature.

When I searched Big Baase 2001 with 1.6 million games it found 100
games with king+quuen vs. king+knight. As a point of comparison on
the rarity of this ending:
There are 109 games with K+B+N vs K (also known to be a rare ending)
There are 11,318 games with K+R+P vs K+R

On 2004-04-20, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
Well, on that basis I should learn the king + queen vs king + knight,
since

a) It occured in one of my games (I had the queen) AND
b) I played it badly (it was drawn).

But I guess time spent practicing this might not be time well spent if
the ending is quite rare, as others have said it is.

(Answering a week later, but whatever, I just resubscribed to this group)

If you drew that game, it seems your tactical vision and/or mating
with a queen is perhaps not as sharp as it could be. Why not improve
those by learning this ending? Time spent analyzing and practising
such endings is also good for your chess even if the position isn't
exactly Q v N.

--
Remco Gerlich

Remco Gerlich wrote in message ...
On 2004-04-20, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
Well, on that basis I should learn the king + queen vs king + knight,
since

a) It occured in one of my games (I had the queen) AND
b) I played it badly (it was drawn).

But I guess time spent practicing this might not be time well spent if
the ending is quite rare, as others have said it is.

(Answering a week later, but whatever, I just resubscribed to this group)

If you drew that game, it seems your tactical vision and/or mating
with a queen is perhaps not as sharp as it could be. Why not improve
those by learning this ending? Time spent analyzing and practising
such endings is also good for your chess even if the position isn't
exactly Q v N.

Certainly I have no trouble with Queen+King vs King. I can normally
acomplish that in about a dozen moves, depending on the start
position. Adding the knight into the equation made it very hard (for
me). But since it's so rare (someone stated 100 games in his database
of 1.6 million), it's clearly not worth worrying about. If it only
occurs once in every 16,000 games (on average), I don't care too much
about it.

If you have another suggestion to practice endings with the queen
(other than queen+king vs king), I'd welcome them. I gather king+queen
vs king+rook is not easy, but I don't know how common that is (I
suspect not too uncommon), and have not tried that. I guess that is
one to practice.

I was rather annoyed last night on ICC. I was playing a much stronger
opponent, and I was winning by about 5 points. He then wanted to abort
(not even adjourn) the game, as he "had 2 go". I refused, and
eventually lost. How annoying! I had what was an easy win, the choice
to abort (which I declined), then to go on to loose it in the endgame.
Strangly, this character played someone immediatly after me, so his
"had 2 go" seemed a pretty poor excuse.

I guess I learn a couple of lessons from that game.

Dr. David Kirkby.

"Dr. David Kirkby" m wrote
in message om...
Remco Gerlich wrote in message
...
On 2004-04-20, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
Well, on that basis I should learn the king + queen vs king + knight,
since

a) It occured in one of my games (I had the queen) AND
b) I played it badly (it was drawn).

But I guess time spent practicing this might not be time well spent if
the ending is quite rare, as others have said it is.

(Answering a week later, but whatever, I just resubscribed to this
group)

If you drew that game, it seems your tactical vision and/or mating
with a queen is perhaps not as sharp as it could be. Why not improve
those by learning this ending? Time spent analyzing and practising
such endings is also good for your chess even if the position isn't
exactly Q v N.

Certainly I have no trouble with Queen+King vs King. I can normally
acomplish that in about a dozen moves, depending on the start
position. Adding the knight into the equation made it very hard (for
me). But since it's so rare (someone stated 100 games in his database
of 1.6 million), it's clearly not worth worrying about. If it only
occurs once in every 16,000 games (on average), I don't care too much
about it.

If you have another suggestion to practice endings with the queen
(other than queen+king vs king), I'd welcome them. I gather king+queen
vs king+rook is not easy, but I don't know how common that is (I
suspect not too uncommon), and have not tried that. I guess that is
one to practice.

I was rather annoyed last night on ICC. I was playing a much stronger
opponent, and I was winning by about 5 points. He then wanted to abort
(not even adjourn) the game, as he "had 2 go". I refused, and
eventually lost. How annoying! I had what was an easy win, the choice
to abort (which I declined), then to go on to loose it in the endgame.
Strangly, this character played someone immediatly after me, so his
"had 2 go" seemed a pretty poor excuse.

I guess I learn a couple of lessons from that game.

Dr. David Kirkby.

This guy is no doctor !!

He can't even ****'in spell basic words in the English language !

He is probably a welfare case with a complex