Endgame

In chess, the endgame (or end game or ending) refers to the stage of the game when there are few pieces left on the board.

General

In general, the player with a material advantage tries to exchange pieces and reach the endgame. In the endgame, it is better for the player with more pawns to avoid too many pawn exchanges, because they should be won for nothing. Also, endings with pawns on both sides of the board are much easier to win. A king and pawn endgame with an outside passed pawn should be a far easier win than a middlegame a rook ahead.

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With the recent growth of computer chess, an interesting development has been the creation of endgame databases which are tables of stored positions calculated by retrograde analysis (such a database is called a tablebase). A program which incorporates knowledge from such a database is able to play perfect chess on reaching any position in the database.

Related Topics:
Computer chess - Tablebase

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