End Game Lessons

Amazon - Chess book for Beginners

Page 76 of the book

Excerpts from Chapter Six, “The End Game” “One of the most successful grandmasters of all time, Jose Raul Capablanca, once said, “In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else.” (Endgame is often spelled as one word.) For a beginner, the best place to start is with a few simple end games in which the side with more material can force a win.” [Page 67 of Beat That Kid in Chess] From page 76: “For a beginner learning the end game, you first need to learn how to win when you are ahead in material. Knowing how to win with a king and queen versus a long king is great, but how do you get that queen? Holding onto your queen throughout the middle game and capturing your opponent’s queen (not always possible to do) can be important; yet remember that when a pawn gets to the last rank, it is transformed, usually to the most powerful fighting force in the game: a queen. “The setup now before you was chosen because it might be chal- lenging for a beginner to win but easy for an average tournament player. White has two passed pawns. Playing the white side, use each of your three pieces as a team. Find which one is best to move forward at any given moment. Let’s examine one way for white to win this end game.” [See image of this page on the left]

Beat That Kid in Chess

Part of page 77 of the book Beat That Kid in Chess