7 Endgame Principles Every Chess Player Should Know

1) Whenever possible, create a passed pawn.

The structure and positioning of your pawns can dictate the endgame. Passed pawns (pawns that have no enemy pawns that can stop them on their way to promotion) can be very powerful.

2) Many wins are based on "Opposition"

Opposition is basically the situation when your kings are facing each other and there's only one free space between them.

3) Centralize your king as soon as possible

Let's face it: in the opening and middle game stages, it is definitely the king that we worry about and take care of, but when it comes to the endgame, it is completely different. The king actually becomes much more valuable and dangerous, and the main reason why we need to centralize the king is because once the King gets in the center, It will be much faster to move to the side where it's most needed and where you want it to go, the queen's side or the king's side. You can get it much faster from the central perspective.

4) If you own the Bishop pair and they are already active, focus on limiting your enemy's knight

Sometimes you can end up with a minor piece endgame, such as two bishops versus a bishop and knight. What should you do in this sort of situation? If you own two pairs of Bishops and they're already active, now it's time to concentrate, limiting the range of the enemy knight.

5) Rook pawns are very strong against knights

In the end game part, knights usually have a very hard time stopping a passed pawn, but it gets even tougher when that passed pawn is a rook pawn, whether an "h" or "a" pawn, and the main reason for that is that the knights have more restricted movements close to the corners.

6) Knights are superior to Bishops if all the pawns are on one side of the board

The main reason for that is that the Bishop's long-range powers no longer have meaning. While the knights are able to get either color square, there is no safe heaven for the enemy king or pawns.

7) In the rook endgame, cut off your opponent's king

Even if you don't know anything about the Rook endgame, just follow this one key thing that can help you perform better, and that stands for whenever you get the chance, cut off your opponent's king.

Thank you all for your time!