The very basics!
In this section you will have an opportunity to practice winning endgames. You will need a partner who is willing to practice with you. The player playing the white pieces should win everytime! Take turns playing the white pieces. You should practice these until you have mastered each one, always obtaining a win and avoiding any possible embarressing stalemate. A stalemate occures when the player, whose turn to move, cannot make a legal move, yet is not in check. The game is then called a draw and each player recieves a half of a point in a tournament situation. Hints are provided at bottom of page!
Here white has a pawn to the good and should be able to queen it. It's a little trickier than you think! Unless you know what you're doing, this situation will usually end as a stalemate. Try it for a while and then check the hints at the bottom of the page if you need to.
a) White to move and queen pawn!
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In the problem above, we realize that we only need to be one pawn ahead to win a chess game, as that pawn has the possibility to become a queen!
If we queen that pawn, then we should always win the game. See if you can checkmate the king and avoid the stalemate. There's a rule in chess that states that after the last pawn has been taken or moved, you must checkmate within 50 moves or the game is a draw.
b) White to move and checkmate!
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Here we have two rooks and a king versus a sole king. White should surely win! See if you can very systematically checkmate the black king. It can be done in only six moves by white!
c) White to move and checkmate!
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A rook and king versus a king. Don't stalemate. You have but 50 moves to get the mate. Approach this problem systematically!
d) White to move and checkmate!
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Our last problem for this page, but one that makes a very important point! We'll need this lesson to master some slightly more difficult endgame situations later on.
e) White to move and queen a pawn!
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Hints:
a) The white king must always stay in front of the pawn. Black king goes one way (say to the right), white king goes the other way (to the left).
b) The king must help the queen push the black king to the end of the board. From there the checkmate is easy, but be careful, don't stalemate.
c) The rooks simply "walks" the king down to the end of the board, putting one rook in front of the other. However, both rooks will eventually need to move all the way to the right end of the board, as the king gets closer to them, to continue this strategy.
d) The rook and king together pushes the black king to the end of the board or to a corner of the board. From there the checkmate is always possible, but can be tricky! Don't allow the stalemate.
e) The point here is that the pawns to not need to be defended by the king. If the black king tries to take the one pawn it can, the other pawn races to become a queen! Obviously, the white king will be needed to move the pawns slowly forwards, but there's no rush to get to the pawns, as they are safe together!
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