Endgame essentials you need to know! Vol. 1

In this video course, GM Surya Ganguly sits with IM Sagar Shah and, drawing from his colossal experience, shares some uncommon endgame wisdom. The material mostly features positions with rook against rook and a pawn and starts by covering the fundamentals: Lucena, Philidor, and Vancura. But it quickly enters non-trivial territory apt to challenge even masters: the slippery theoretical nuances of dealing with doubled pawns and pawns on the f- and h-files.

Surya presents some ingenious rules of thumb to tackle these knotty endings and, at the same time, underscores the importance of actual calculation and understanding so as to not fall into some crude reductionist trap. Through this course, he promises something no instructor would ordinarily promise: uncertainty! The aim, he asserts, is not knowing everything-which is a chimaera that can only stem from naivety-but realising one can never know enough to be one hundred per cent failproof and, thus, being watchfully comfortable in the uncertainty this realisation affords.

. Video running time: 4 h 46 min

. Training with ChessBase apps - Play key positions against Fritz on various levels

. Database with annotations by the author

Including download & stream for iPad, tablet etc: can be unlocked with imprinted key

System requirements:

Minimum: Pentium III 1 GHz, 1 GB RAM, Windows 8.1, DirectX9 graphic card with 256 MB RAM, DVD-ROM drive, Windows Media Player 9 and internet connection for program activation. Recommended: PC Intel Core i7, 2.8 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Windows 10 or 11 , DirectX10 graphic card (or compatible) with 512 MB RAM or better, 100% DirectX10 compatible sound card, Windows Media Player 11, DVDROM drive and internet connection for program activation.