Chess Endgame - General Considerations

General Considerations

In endgames with pieces and pawns, an extra pawn is a winning advantage in 50 to 60 percent of the cases. It becomes more decisive if the stronger side has a positional advantage (Euwe & Meiden 1966:xvi). In general, the player with a material advantage tries to exchange pieces and reach the endgame. In the endgame, the player with a material advantage should usually try to exchange pieces but avoid the exchange of pawns (Dvoretsky & Yusupov 2008:134). There are some exceptions to this: (1) endings in which both sides have two rooks plus pawns – the player with more pawns has better winning chances if a pair of rooks are not exchanged, and (2) bishops on opposite color with other pieces – the stronger side should avoid exchanging the other pieces. Also when all of the pawns are on the same side of the board, often the stronger side must exchange pawns to try to create a passed pawn.

In the endgame, it is better for the player with more pawns to avoid too many pawn exchanges, because they should be won for nothing. Also, endings with pawns on both sides of the board are much easier to win. A king and pawn endgame with an outside passed pawn should be a far easier win than a middlegame a rook ahead.

With the recent growth of computer chess, an interesting development has been the creation of endgame databases which are tables of stored positions calculated by retrograde analysis (such a database is called an endgame tablebase). A program which incorporates knowledge from such a database is able to play perfect chess on reaching any position in the database.

Max Euwe and Walter Meiden give these five generalizations:

1. In king and pawn endings, an extra pawn is decisive in more than 90 percent of the cases
2. In endgames with pieces and pawns, an extra pawn is a winning advantage in 50 to 60 percent of the cases. It becomes more decisive if the stronger side has a positional advantage
3. The king plays an important role in the endgame
4. Initiative is more important in the endgame than in other phases of the game. In rook endgames the initiative is usually worth at least a pawn
5. Two connected passed pawns are very strong. If they reach their sixth rank they are generally as powerful as a rook (Euwe & Meiden 1966:xvi-xvii).