Reviewed by IM John Bartholomew
Why Endgames Are the Cheapest Rating Points Available
Endgame technique has a property almost nothing else in chess has: you can finish it.
Opening preparation expands forever and goes stale. Calculation improves slowly and unevenly. But king and rook against a lone king is a closed problem — learn the method, drill it until it's fast, and it's yours permanently. It never depends on what your opponent chose to play.
The reason more people don't do it is that endgame practice is boring in a way tactics puzzles aren't. Which makes the format of the practice matter more than usual.
The One Thing That Separates Real Practice from Fake Practice
Set up king and rook against a lone king and push the pieces around until it's mate. Most players can do this. Almost all of them conclude they know the endgame.
Then put a clock on it and give the defending king the most stubborn defence available, and the picture changes. The king runs toward the centre, refuses to walk into the short side, and takes the line that costs you the most moves. Suddenly "I know this" turns into a lot of shuffling.
That's the distinction worth caring about when choosing where to practise: does the defender fight, and are you under pressure? Those two things convert recognition into technique.
Chessiverse: Mate Hunt
Mate Hunt covers the six essential mates — queen and rook, two rooks, lone queen, lone rook, two bishops, and bishop and knight — each against a king playing a genuinely resisting defence.
The structure is: learn the method, practise it, then race the clock. Each mate has four thresholds, and they're demanding. Queen and rook wants three seconds for the top tier. The lone rook wants nine. Bishop and knight wants twenty-two, with gold at forty-four.
The timing is the part that makes it work. It converts a vague sense of "yes, I know that one" into a number, and the number is often humbling the first time. There's a leaderboard per position if that's motivating for you.
The honest limitation: it's focused on the essential mates rather than the full breadth of endgame theory. It won't teach you rook and pawn versus rook, and those decide far more real games.
Lichess: Free, Deep, Unstructured
Lichess has the most endgame material of anywhere, and all of it is free. Practice positions covering a wide range of endgame types, plus a complete seven-piece Syzygy tablebase you can query for perfect play in any position that small.
For a self-directed player this is close to ideal. You can take any ending you lost, load it, and explore exhaustively against optimal defence.
What it won't do is tell you whether you're any good at it. There's no clock, no score, no threshold you're failing to meet. If you're the kind of player who'll drill something honestly without being measured, that costs you nothing. Most people aren't.
Chess.com: Structured Lessons
Chess.com puts endgames inside its lesson system, which is the right place for them if you're learning the concepts for the first time. The drills are structured, explained, and sequenced sensibly.
It sits between the other two: more guidance than Lichess, less pressure than a timed format. Lessons need a paid plan.
What to Actually Do
- Start with the mates you'd be embarrassed to miss. Queen, rook, two rooks. An hour, total.
- Get them fast, not just correct. Correct-but-slow means you'll misplay it in time trouble, which is exactly when it will come up.
- Then king and pawn versus king. Opposition, the square rule, key squares. This shows up constantly.
- Then rook endings. The largest category of real endgames and the one most club players guess their way through. Lichess is the better tool here.
- Bishop and knight last. Rare, hard, and worth it for the coordination practice rather than the practical value.
The Bottom Line
If you want breadth and you'll drill honestly on your own, Lichess is free and has more material than anything else. If you're learning the concepts from scratch, Chess.com's lessons are well structured.
If you half-know the basic mates and want to find out how well, Mate Hunt will tell you in about ten minutes, and the answer is usually "less well than I thought". That's the most useful thing an endgame trainer can do.
Where to Start
- Mate Hunt for the six essential mates, timed.
- Browse the bot directory to practise converting won positions in real games.
- Best Chess Bot for Club Players if endgames are costing you games at 1600-2000.
Last verified: September 2026
