Which endgames should I learn first?

November 7, 2026 · 7 min read

The question comes back every week on Reddit and on the Chess.com forums. A player rated somewhere between 800 and 1600 has realized that their games are often decided after the queens come off. They open an endgame book, see hundreds of pages, and ask: where do I even start?

The good news is that the answers agree. Strong players and coaches give the same short list, in roughly the same order, and it is a lot shorter than the book. Below is that order, with what to remember for each step and a short video lesson for each one from our YouTube channel.

Step 1: the basic mates

Before anything else, you need to win when you are a queen or a rook up with nothing else on the board. It sounds obvious, but many players lose half a point here every month: they run out of time, or they stalemate.

Queen and king against king: use the queen to shrink the box around the enemy king, then bring your own king close. Stop and check for stalemate before every queen move near the edge. Watch the short video.
Rook and king against king: same idea, slower. The rook cuts the king off, your king walks up in front of the enemy king, and the rook gives check from the side. Watch the short video.
Two rooks against king (the ladder): the rooks take turns pushing the king one rank at a time to the edge. No help from your king needed. Watch the short video.

You know these when you can do them fast, with a few seconds on the clock, without thinking.

Step 2: king and pawn against king

This is the base of all endgames. When you trade pieces, you need to know in advance whether the pawn ending that follows is a win or a draw. Three ideas cover most of it.

The opposition: when the two kings face each other with one square between them, the side that does not have to move holds its ground. Taking the opposition is how the attacking king gets past, and how the defender stops it. Watch the short video.
Key squares: for a pawn that is not on the edge, if your king reaches one of the squares two ranks in front of the pawn, the pawn queens whatever the defender does. So the race is often about the king, not the pawn.
The rule of the square: draw a square from the pawn to its promotion rank. If the defending king can step inside it, it catches the pawn. You can count this in a second, without calculating moves.

Step 3: the draws you must know

Some positions look winning and are not. Knowing them saves half points when you defend and stops you from trading into a draw when you are ahead.

The rook pawn: a king and a pawn on the a or h file against a lone king that reaches the corner in front of the pawn is a draw. The attacking king can never get out of the way. Watch the short video.
The wrong-colored bishop: add a bishop to that rook pawn, and if the bishop cannot control the promotion square, it is still a draw once the defending king sits in the corner. Watch the short video.

Step 4: Lucena and Philidor

Rook endgames are the ones you will reach most often, and rook and pawn against rook is the core of them. Two positions are worth learning by heart, because the rest of rook endgames is built on them.

Lucena, how to win: your pawn is on the seventh rank, your king is in front of it, the enemy king is cut off. You win by “building a bridge”: you bring your rook to the fourth rank, step out with your king, and use the rook to block the checks. Watch the short video.
Philidor, how to draw: your king stands in front of the pawn. Keep your rook on your third rank so the enemy king cannot come forward. When the pawn steps onto that rank, go to the back of the board with your rook and check from behind. Watch the short video.

Both depend on one idea you will use all the time: cutting the enemy king off with your rook along a file or a rank, so it cannot come back to the pawn. Watch the short video.

Step 5: queen and rook endings that come up

Queen against rook: the queen should win, but the technique is long and many club players never manage it. Learn the main idea of pushing the king and rook apart, and how to win the rook with a fork. Watch the short video.
Queen against a pawn on the seventh rank: the queen usually wins against a pawn in the center or on the b or g file, by checking until the enemy king has to stand in front of its pawn, then bringing the king closer. Against a rook pawn or a bishop pawn, it is often a draw unless your king is already near.
Rook against pawns: a rook usually beats a lone pawn if your king can get in front of it in time. But two connected pawns far up the board, with the rook’s king far away, can beat a rook. Count before you go for it. Watch the short video.

What you can skip for now

Mate with bishop and knight is the classic example. It is long, hard, and you might reach it once in years of games. The same goes for most endings with only minor pieces, and the deep theory of queen endgames. They are worth learning one day, after the list above is automatic, not before.

If you want one book, the usual recommendation on these threads is Silman’s Complete Endgame Course. It is organized by rating level, so you read only the chapters for your level and skip the rest.

Learn it by playing it

The most upvoted advice is not about which endgame, it is about how. Reading Lucena once is not enough. Set the position up on a board or an analysis screen, play it against an engine or a friend, and do it until you win (or draw, for Philidor) every time, from both sides. Then do it again a week later.

The honest part: it takes time

Each step looks short on paper. In practice, getting the basic mates fast, the pawn endings clear and the two rook positions automatic takes weeks of short sessions. And the list is general: it does not tell you which of these endgames you actually reach in your games, or which ones you are already throwing away.

Which endgames do you actually reach?

That is a question a short video on your own games can answer. You ask “which endgames do I reach in my games, and which did I misplay?”, and you get the moments from your own chess.com or Lichess games where an endgame slipped: the drawn rook ending you lost, the pawn race you miscounted, the queen you could not convert in time.

That is what Chess X-Ray does. It reads your games, finds those moments, checks them with Stockfish, and explains them in a short video: the move you played, the one you missed, and the idea behind it, in plain words. It tells you which step of the list above to work on first.

It does not replace playing the positions out yourself. But it tells you where to start, so the time you do spend goes to the endgames that cost you points.

A simple routine

Two or three short sessions a week: one position from the list, played out until it is automatic.
Once a week: watch the lesson video again for the position you are learning.
After a lost endgame: ask what went wrong in your own game, and go back to the matching step.

The short version

Basic mates first: queen, rook, and the two-rook ladder, fast and without stalemate.
Then king and pawn: opposition, key squares, the rule of the square.
Then the draws: the rook pawn and the wrong-colored bishop.
Then rook endgames: Lucena to win, Philidor to draw, and cutting the king off.
Then queen against rook, queen against a pawn on the seventh, and rook against pawns.
Skip bishop and knight mate for now. Play every position out, do not only read it.

If you lose your endgames because of one bad move, read how to stop blundering in chess, and to build a habit out of your reviews, how to improve from analyzing your games.