STRATEGIC ENDGAMES
In the phase between the late middlegame and the technical endgame we speak about strategic endgames. As there is not that much coverage compared to other aspects of the game many inexperienced players tend to commit a lot of mistakes in this area. A master playing an amateur, on the other hand, can easily turn a draw into a full point or save a bad position.
292. What is the difference between strategic endgames and technical endgames?
Material:
In technical endgames the material is strongly reduced. Normally, each side has one piece left (except for pawn endings) and between zero and a couple of pawns. The pawns are mostly on one wing.
In strategic endgames, both sides often have two or three pieces and several pawns spread over both wings. Some people would call positions with three pieces for each side a late middlegame. Without queens, however, naming it a strategic endgame is also okay, in my opinion.
Evaluation:
In technical endgames the evaluation is essentially settled — won, drawn, or lost — and what remains is executing (or holding) that result correctly according to known method.
In strategic endgames the evaluation is not that easy. While the engine could have a clear opinion, the player in an actual game might not know, whether his huge advantage is sufficient to win the game or not.
Method:
The word “technique” in technical endings implies there’s a recipe: a known procedure that converts the advantage if followed accurately. The skill being tested is knowledge and tactical precision, not judgment.
In strategic endgames the outcome hinges on long-term positional factors rather than immediate tactics or forced sequences. Multiple plans compete, and the player has to find the right long-term idea rather than recall it. The skill being tested is judgment and planning, not memorized precision.
293. Is there overlapping between technical and strategic endgames?
Even when the material is reduced considerably, if pawns are spread across both wings — you’re usually still in strategic territory, because there’s enough material for multiple viable plans to coexist. It’s not the piece count but rather the number of independent pawn islands/weaknesses or passed pawn dynamics that determines whether an ending is strategic. As you can see, there is a grey zone and often it depends on the beholder, how the thing is called.
294. What is the goal in a strategic endgame?
A strategic endgame will often be transformed into a technical one. A player nurses a small structural edge for 20-30 moves (strategic phase), finally wins a pawn or trades into a simplified position, and then converts that using known technique (technical phase). Hence, the two aren’t opposed categories so much as successive stages within a single game — the strategic struggle might earn you the technically won position.
295. What is more important – studying strategic endgames or technical ones?
Both is important, but once you have built a solid foundation of knowledge with regard to the most important technical endgames, there appears to be more value in studying strategical ones. Here are my reasons:
1. Strategical endgames appear more frequent than technical ones as sometimes the game ends before the final technical phase is reached.
2. When the technical phase is reached, the game might already be clearly decided, so that no particular skill is needed anymore.
3. Some technical endgames hardly ever appear on the board. For instance, didn’t I have a single K + B + N versus K endgame in my entier career. And I recall only one single queen endgame, which, btw, ruined my whole tournament despite a win. The game had to be adjourned three times, so I was notoriously short of sleep.
4. A lot of knowledge on technical endgames you acquire gets forgotten over time. Studying strategic endgames, on the other hand, is about grasping the principles. These are easy to remember and will enter your chess understanding for good. As these principles are valid in every strategic endgame, less learning (compared to technical endgames) causes more effect.
296. What is the main difference between strategic endgames and the middlegame?
The first difference is that the play is less dynamic, as many pieces, most importantly the queen, have left the board (there are also strategic endgames with queens, but they are few and far between). Having a static advantage, like the better pawn structure, weighs more than in the middlegame, as counterplay is difficult to organize. The superior side will try to slowly increase his advantage and squeeze the opponent. The second biggest difference is the role of the king. Without queens on the board, the king doesn’t have to hide anymore and will assume an active role.
297. What are the most important themes and principles in strategic endgames?
After presenting all themes and principles at once, I will assign corresponding questions to each of them.
- Schematic thinking
- Domination
- Weaknesses
- Passed pawns
- Pawn majorities
- Space advantage
- Centralization of the king
- Better minor pieces
- Penetration
- Zugzwang
- Opposite-colored bishops
- Simplification
- Winning potential
- Fortress
- Stalemate
- Repetition of moves
298. Should I apply schematic thinking?
In the middlegame it is sometimes difficult to come up with long-term plans, as modern chess is characterized by active defense (counterplay) and prophylactic thinking. Strong players don’t let themselves being slowly cooked in hot water like the proverbial frog. The endgame, on the other hand, is different. One side often adopts a dominating role, when the advantage is uncontested and of long-term nature. Here, making long-term plans is the right thing to do. When doing this, instead of going move by move, you should start with your goal, which can be a certain target position. Then try to figure out how you can get there. This way of thinking backwards from the end is a hallmark of strong players.
299. How does the theme of “domination” play out in strategic endgames?
If you dominate your opponent, you can indulge in long-term planning as it was pointed out above. This implies that there normally is no need to hurry. Don’t spoil your advantage by hasty actions. Instead, try to increase your advantage steadily by improving little things in your position. Taking it slow also has the benefit of wearing your opponent down, physically and mentally. Suffering from a bad position, he is running low on serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. His thoughts slow down and he gets tired earlier than you, who is in the driver’s seat. Domination also plays a role in the battle between minor pieces (see below).
300. Where is the weakness?
This is one of the most important questions throughout the entire game. In the endgame however, you are in a better position to exploit weaknesses in the pawn structure, as there are less defenders and less resources for counter play.
301. Can I create a weakness or an additional one?
In many endgames the defender is able to defend one weakness, but gets overloaded once another weakness is created. This strategy is called “the principle of the second front” or “the principle of the second weakness”. The attacker, having more space available, can attack both weaknesses more efficient than the defender is able to defend them. Or he can quicker maneuver from one weakness to the other than his opponent.
302. Can I create a passed pawn?
Passed pawns are a key factor in the endgame. As there are only a few defenders left, promotion now becomes a realistic goal. Even if the attempt can be stopped, it could result in a decisive deflection of forces, who are now missing in other areas of the board.
303. Who has the better passed pawn?
When both players have a passed pawn, the decisive question is, which one is more powerful. Outside passed pawns tend to be more valuable, as their deflection potential is higher. Particularly minor pieces have a hard time stopping them. If they can, they are often caught in a passive position.
304. Can I gain more space?
Moving your pawns in order to gain space can sometimes be a problem in the middlegame, as the ensuing weaknesses could be exploited. However, things are different with reduced material when you are the dominating party. With no more queens on the board who could penetrate your position, you can push your pawns without any regrets. There are three kinds of benefits:
1. You further restrict your opponent’s pieces, thus increasing your domination.
2. By fixing your opponent’s pawns you mark them as weakness. Imagine you push your pawn to a6, forcing the move …b7-b6. Now the pawn a7 is a sitting duck, which can be attacked by Nc3-b5 or by a rook on the 7th rank or one appearing on a8.
3. Your pawns are closer to the finishing line. When there is a passed pawns race on two flanks, you are likely to win with your already far advanced pawns.
305. Who has the better pawn majority?
Often, the player who will succeed in making the most of his pawn majority will be clearly better in the endgame. There is always the double goal of mobilizing your own majority, whilst at the same time restricting the opponent’s pawns. A mobile majority will gain you space and offers the opportunity to create a passed pawn.
306. Can I centralize my king?
An analogon I like to use for describing the king in the endgame is the butterfly. When the queens are still ruling the board, the king must hide and has the mobility of a caterpillar. Once the queens have left, the king undergoes a metamorphosis and becomes a completely different animal. With strongly reduced material, its fighting power equals 4 pawn units, opposed to the one of a bishop with only 3.5. A mistake inexperienced players often make is not to centralize their king, thus leaving a lot of potential energy unused.
307. Who has the better minor piece(s)?
A difference in value between minor pieces of both sides normally increases, the more pieces have left the board. The reason behind this rationale is that the presence of other pieces distracts from the favorable imbalance. Hence, a method of leveraging the advantage is to exchange as many neutral pieces as possible, to be left with the pure imbalance. Such exchanges can be considered cleaning the board from impurities. Now, let’s see how such imbalances can look like.
1.bishop pair
The pure matchup bishop pair versus bishop + knight is highly favorable for the bishops in an open position (against 2 knights the advantage is even bigger).
2.good bishop versus bad bishop
The attacker often wins by zugzwang, followed by the penetration with the king.
3.bishop versus knight
Depending on the pawn structure, both pieces could be equivalent, but in extreme cases, both could also dominate one another. In the endgame, there are more positions, however, which favor the bishop. In the section on the exchange, I already listed what kind of positions both pieces prefer.
308. Can I penetrate my opponent’s position?
With not many defenders left and zugzwang being a power tool, penetrating the position with the intention of gobbling up pawns is one of the main winning ideas in the endgame.
309. Can I work with zugzwang?
With only a few pieces on the board, it may happen that all defending pieces are fully engaged and cannot be missed. This makes zugzwang a killer application for the attacker. As there are only so many playable pawn moves available, the defender sooner or later will have to give way to the attacker’s king, who then will penetrate the position.
310. Can I save myself with opposite-colored bishops?
One way of saving a critical position is to liquidate into a constellation with opposite-colored bishops, when the opportunity arises. Such position can even be drawn with two minus pawns, as the defender often manages to set up a blockade.
311. Can I save myself with simplification?
A beginner’s rule is to exchange as many pieces as possible, when being ahead in material. But be careful! It might occur that the remaining forcers are insufficient for a win, if too many pawns have left the board. As the defender, you want to be on the lookout for the opportunity to liquidate into such a technically drawn position.
312. Should I avoid simplification?
As the superior side one of your concerns is to retain enough winning potential and avoid too many simplifications. But as always, it all depends on the specifics of the position. Here a rule of thumb from my part: Exchanging pieces is generally okay, particularly if this will improve your pawn structure. Important is to retain as many pawns as possible and to have enough weak pawns left to attack.
Sometimes the defender must avoid simplifications in order to retain chances for counterplay and/or to avoid zugzwang. A typical example is R+B vs R+B, with the attacker having the superior bishop. After the exchange of rooks, the bishop ending could be lost, while with rooks on the board, the defender can use his rook for excecuting counterplay or waiting moves.
313. Can I build a fortress?
If the position is very closed or if there are only pawns on one wing the theme of fortress becomes one of your defensive ideas.
314. Is there a stalemate combination?
If none of your pawns is able to move, getting rid of all your pieces by force might lead to a salvation by stalemate.
315. Is there a repetition of moves?
Perpetual check or a combination of checks and attacks on pawns might force a repetition of moves.
316. Are there typical endgames for certain openings?
Openings with a rather closed center and prevailing pawn structures can lead to typical opening-related endgames. In that case, if you are ambitious, even the study of such endings could be part of your opening preparation! One example would be the French Opening with white pawns on e5 an f4 and black pawns on e6 and d5. The pawn d4 has been exchanged for the pawn c5. A typical ending, favoring White, would now be the good knight on d4 against the bad French bishop on d7.
317. Can I steer the game from the opening directly into a favorable endgame?
There are openings in which you can, as it were, bypass the middlegame through a massive exchange of pieces in order to reach an advantageous endgame. The first stage would be a queenless late middlegame, which eventually turns into the aspired endgame. A classical example is the Ruy Lopez Exchange Variation, where the pawn structure would see White winning the pawn ending and have a clear advantage in some minor piece endings. Of course, all of this cannot be forced against good opposition, but it is one of the many ideas to win a game.
