Spotting positions where no progress can be engineered by either side.
Why it matters
Some endgames cannot be won however well you play. Recognising them saves hours: you stop trying to squeeze a position that has nothing in it, and you stop panicking in one you can hold with two rules.
The most useful ones to know by name are king and pawn against king with the defending king in front, rook's pawn with the wrong bishop, and rook endgames a pawn down with the Philidor set-up.
See it on a board
The defending king stays in front of the pawn and takes the opposition every time. The pawn reaches the seventh with check, and the position is stalemate.
Checked: this line reaches a drawn position.
How to play it
- As the defender, get the king in front of the pawn. That single fact draws most king and pawn endgames.
- Keep the opposition rather than grabbing squares, and be willing to be stalemated.
- As the attacker, check the drawn patterns before trading pieces, not after.
At each level
The same idea, said the way it is taught at each age.
Pawn · ages 3–6
If your king is in front of the enemy pawn, you can usually draw. Keep it there and do not panic.
Knight · ages 4–6
Learn the drawn patterns by name. Knowing that a position is dead drawn is worth as much as knowing how to win one, because it tells you what to trade into.
What goes wrong
- Trading into a drawn endgame while winning, because the extra pawn looked decisive.
- Giving up a defensible position because the material count looks hopeless, when the pattern is a known draw.
Questions people ask
- Is a rook's pawn always a draw if the king gets in front?
- With the defending king in the corner, yes — and it is drawn even if the defending king is only near the corner, because it cannot be driven out. That is the single most useful drawn pattern to know.