Endgame Courses (41)

This course examines the endgames arising from three related White systems — the London System, the Torre Attack, and the Trompowsky — which share a common structural logic: the early commitment of the queen's bishop and the recurring pawn formations, most often Carlsbad structures, that follow. The course addresses how dark-square strategy carries into the endgame and how small but durable structural advantages are converted through precise technique and accurate piece placement.

This course examines the endgames arising from the Sicilian Defense across its principal variations, including the Najdorf, Scheveningen, Taimanov, Classical, Sveshnikov, and Dragon. It focuses on the structural features that determine endgame evaluation — the d5-square, the half-open c-file, pawn majorities, weak squares, and minor-piece imbalances — and on the techniques required to exploit or defend long-term positional advantages. Central themes include the transition from middlegame to endgame, king centralization, the bishop pair, opposite-colored bishops, and the conversion of subtle structural edges into full points.

Dreev University – Rook Endgames Part 3 by GMs Alexey Dreev and Pier Luigi Basso teaches players to recognize the critical decision in rook endgames. Its 38 positions build through three stages: 20 positions around five fundamental questions, 8 mixed positions without guidance, and Dreev's Challenge—10 positions analyzed by Dreev, including recent Olympiad examples. The aim is instinct-building, not memorization.

When the pieces come off and the evaluation settles on equality, most players reach for the draw. Anatoly Karpov spent a career doing the opposite. He treated "equal" as a starting position rather than a verdict, tightening his grip until an ending that could not be lost was quietly lost anyway.

That instinct sits at the heart of one of the most common mistakes in chess: the assumption that an equal endgame must end in a draw. Nothing could be further from the truth. Equal endgames — precisely because both sides relax once the position looks balanced — are where the heaviest errors are made, and where a patient player finds wins that were never supposed to exist.

There is a paradox at the heart of knight endgames. Two knights cannot force mate against a lone king — one of the first facts every player is taught. Yet add a single pawn to the defending side, and the mate can suddenly appear. The pawn that should have saved him is the very thing that dooms him.
That reversal is the whole subject in miniature. Of all the endings, knight endgames sit closest to pure pawn play, and they inherit its unforgiving arithmetic: a single extra pawn is often enough to win, especially with several pawns still on the board, and one imprecise move can erase an advantage built over hours. Where an extra pawn can be meaningless in opposite-colored bishop endgames or even in rook endgames, here it tends to decide.

There comes a point in almost every endgame where the variations run dry. The pieces are few, the position is quiet, and no forcing sequence promises anything at all. For an inexperienced player this is where the trouble starts — the reflex is to keep calculating, to burn energy searching for a line that simply isn't there. For players like Capablanca or Petrosian, this is precisely where the game was decided.
That reversal sits at the heart of Schematic Thinking in the Endgame by IM Boroljub Zlatanovic. When a position offers nothing to calculate, the decisive skill becomes something quieter and harder to teach: building a long-term plan the opponent cannot prevent, and finding the ideal square for every piece — the king included — in the unhurried manner Capablanca made his own.

The saying goes: "opposite-colored bishops draw." Yet GM Felix Blohberger recently won a tournament game from two pawns down in precisely this type of ending. His opponent knew the general rule but missed the specific condition—fortress construction requires exact piece coordination, not just material count. This gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application inspired Blohberger and GM Pier Luigi Basso to create a course built around positional precision rather than abstract principles.

9 Steps to Endgame Mastery addresses this reality with systematic clarity. Created by two experienced Macedonian International Masters—Nikola Nikolovski and Filip Pancevski—the course recognizes that endgame competence isn't built through memorizing theoretical positions alone. It requires understanding the principles that include piece activity, recognizing when king safety matters and when the king must be active, and developing the technical precision to convert advantages that less experienced players let slip away.

There is a principle in same-colored bishop endgames so deceptively simple that it often goes unspoken in theoretical texts: fix your opponent's pawns on the color of their bishop, and place your own on the opposite color. It sounds almost too general to be useful. And yet, game after game at the highest level, the player who internalizes this asymmetry — not merely knows it, but feels it — is the one who converts or survives when the clock pressure mounts. This is the starting point of Bishop Endgames – Essential Knowledge for the Practical Player, a new course by GM Felix Blohberger and GM Pier Luigi Basso.

The conventional wisdom in chess instruction maintains a clear separation: opening theory belongs to one category, endgame technique to another. Yet some of the most practical chess knowledge exists precisely at their intersection—positions where queens leave the board early, where theoretical preparation gives way to structural understanding, and where endgame skill becomes immediately relevant. GM Ioannis Papaioannou's latest course examines this neglected territory, presenting opening systems specifically chosen for their tendency to transition directly into endgames.