"Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine." - Rudolf Spielmann

"In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else, for whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and the opening must be studied in relation to the endgame." - José Raúl Capablanca

Disclaimer: This course is still in development

This course is still in development. It does not yet include any guides. Also some of the endgames are not puzzles, but endgame training positions. In some of these training positions, you have to play a lot of moves (as happens in endgames in your games). Having said that, this is already excellent endgame training. Also remember that you can lock any unlocked skills, if you change your mind.

Why Endgames Matter

Endgames are the last phase of a chess game, where only a few pieces remain on the board. Mastering endgames is essential to becoming a well-rounded chess player. Not only does it increase your chances of winning a game, it also helps you understand key strategic and tactical principles that can be applied in other phases of the game.

Why you should practice endgames

Learning certain fundamental endgames is an important part of every chess training, but it's not enough to just read about them in books. To truly master endgames, you need to practice them extensively, which is where the Puzzle Academy endgames course comes in.

With Puzzle Academy, you can practice with a large number of examples, honing your endgame skills until they become second nature. This is much more effective than just reading about endgames in a book and hoping to remember the key concepts in the heat of a game.

Endgame training positions

Not all endgames positions that you can practice in this course are puzzles. In endgames there can be several different ways to win certain positions. Still, sometimes it can be quite difficult to actually win a certain endgame position in practice, even if it can be achieved with many different moves. That's why I've introduced endgame training positions for ChessPuzzle.net, which are very often used in this course. You can read more about endgame training positions in this blog post.

What you will learn

This is a new course, and still a work in progress. You can follow along while the course is being developed. The following chapters are already available:

• Endgames without pawns
  • Checkmating with bishop and knight
  • Rook versus knight
  • Rook versus bishop
• Pawn endgames
  • King and Pawn versus King
• Queen endgames
  • Queen versus pawn
• Minor piece endgames
  • Knight versus Pawn

Forthcoming chapters

Work has started on the following chapters. Additional chapters are planned for the future.

• Endgames without pawns
  • Rook and Bishop versus Rook
  • Queen versus Rook
• Rook endgames
  • Rook versus Pawn
  • Rook and Pawn versus Rook

Intended audience

We are currently establishing the difficulty ratings of the puzzles in this course. As endgames can get surprisingly difficult even with only a few pieces on the board, we expect this course's audience will range from beginner to grandmaster.