Looking for Advice on Improving My Endgame Play

[simonjack]

Hello everyone,

I've been playing chess casually for a while now, but lately, I've noticed that my endgame skills are really holding me back. I can manage openings and middlegame strategies fairly well, but when it comes to the endgame, I often find myself struggling to convert a material or positional advantage into a win.

I also check this: Can Stockfish make use of present/futureruby But I have not found any solution. Could anyone guide me about this? Does anyone have any tips or resources on how I can improve my endgame technique? I’m particularly interested in learning about key principles, common mistakes to avoid, and any books or online resources that would be helpful for players at my level.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

[matejst]

Most of serious books on endings are an overkill for an amateur, so, I would eventually recommend two: Nunn's "Understanding chess endings", and Soltis' "Grandmaster's secrets -- Endings". Both are easy to find.

OTOH, the endgame software of Convekta (ChessOK) is also excellent. Lots of explanations and exercises. "Theory and practice of chess endings" is very good and cheap, "Total chess ending" is similar, so there is no need to buy both.

There are also a lot of exercises and explanations on LiChess (the mate with B+N is well explained, e.g.).

Anyway, don't be harsh with yourself: the ending is the most difficult stage of a game. At the Olympics, I just saw how a GM saved a lost rook ending and the following day won a drawn rook ending with reduced material both time, against two 2500+ GMs. Even Tal draw a won pawn ending against Korchnoi in a candidates' match. When I played OTB, I lost several won rook endings against weaker players, so...

PS: I forgot to mention Shereshevsky's books. "Endgame strategy" is OK, but "Mastering the endgame" (2 books) treat the transition from the middlegame to the endgame.

[chesskobra]

Wrong forum. This forum is about computational aspects of chess. On lichess forum there are many people giving improvement advice.
About "can stockfish make use of ..." may be posted in that thread. And ruby? what's that?

[towforce]

I've been playing chess casually for a while now, but lately, I've noticed that my endgame skills are really holding me back.

Analysis of your own games is a valuable practice. Here, Gotham teaches how you can do this using the analysis features of chess.com:

[Odd Gunnar Malin]

Hello everyone,

I've been playing chess casually for a while now, but lately, I've noticed that my endgame skills are really holding me back. I can manage openings and middlegame strategies fairly well, but when it comes to the endgame, I often find myself struggling to convert a material or positional advantage into a win.

I also check this: Can Stockfish make use of present/futureruby But I have not found any solution. Could anyone guide me about this? Does anyone have any tips or resources on how I can improve my endgame technique? I’m particularly interested in learning about key principles, common mistakes to avoid, and any books or online resources that would be helpful for players at my level.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Hi.

I'm in the ChessDojo training program and they focus very much on playing sparring games from different positions, preferable against human.

1. Endgame algorithm (Philidor Lucena, B+N Mate etc.). Timecontrol 3+0 and 5+0
2. Endgame Win Conversion (below 1000). Timecontrol 5+5
3. Endgame sparring (position from games). Timecontrol 5+30
4. Rook Endgame Progression (Rook+pawns). Timecontrol 2+30

I guess if you don't find a human opponent you can use a computer. I have been cycling through several engines when training against computer. Turn off any tablebase, you don't want the computer to give you an easy win with letting you queen a pawn, just because it take one move longer to mate.

I have listed the books Dojo use here:

So the main thing is to play sparring games and analyse after.

For win convention, you must take the computer suggestion when analysing with a grain of salt. As human you don't want to give your opponent any counterplay, a computer doesn't care about it since it sees it all.

What is your rating?
Hard to give something specific without knowing this.

One way to find Win conversation positions is either from your own games, or from master games where on side give up and it isn't obvious for you. Can you win against Stocfish at full strength from this position?