A large proportion of chess games are decided in the endgame or in the transition to the endgame, but chess literature has provided relatively little guidance for players seeking to improve their skill in making the vital decisions in these phases of the game.

Building on the ideas introduced in his ground-breaking work Foundations of Chess Strategy, Lars Bo Hansen provides a thought-provoking and convincing treatise on general endgame strategy. He explains how players can maximize the practical problems for their opponents while emphasizing the strengths of their own position. Under his guidance, chess-players will more easily focus on the key elements in the position, devise plans for exploiting them to the full, and develop a better understanding of which pieces need to be exchanged, and which weaknesses really matter.

Part 1 of the book discusses the basic principles of endgame strategy and the thinking methods associated with them, and in Part 2 we see these principles in action in specific types of endings. In Part 3, Hansen investigates the impact of style on the handling of endgame strategy. Many of the examples are from top-level recent practice, and we repeatedly see how the great masters of chess can make difficult tasks appear simple, and in many cases bamboozle their opponents into self-destruction.

004 Symbols

004 Acknowledgements

005 Preface

Part 1

006 1 General Principles

Part 2

044 2 The Role of Pawns in the Endgame

066 3 The Minor Pieces in the Endgame - Bishops and Knights

102 4 The Major Pieces in the Endgame - Queens and Rooks

131 5 Various Material Distributions

179 6 Complex Endgames

Part 3

188 7 The Four Types of Chess-Players and the Endgame

221 Index of Players