Quotes & Sayings About Chess Endgame

The endgame is an arena in which miraculous escapes are not uncommon. — Leonid Shamkovich

Agreeing to draws in the middlegame, equal or otherwise, deprives you of the opportunity to practice playing endgames, and the endgame is probably where you need the most practice. — Pal Benko

The most important feature of the Chess position is the activity of the pieces. This is absolutely fundamental in all phases of the game: Opening, Middlegame and especially Endgame. The primary constraint on a piece's activity is the Pawn structure — Michael Stean

If you are weak in the endgame, you must spend more time analysing studies; in your training games you must aim at transposing to endgames, which will help you to acquire the requisite experience. — Mikhail Botvinnik

I look at improvising as a prolonged game of chess. There's an opening gambit with your pawn in a complex game I have with one character, and lots of side games with other characters, and another game with myself - and in each game you make all these tiny, tiny moves that get you to the endgame. — Steve Carell

To improve at chess you should in the first instance study the endgame. — Jose Raul Capablanca

Patience is the most valuable trait of the endgame player. — Pal Benko

Lack of proper endgame technique allows many players to escape from lost positions, even without any spectacular play on their part. — Leonid Shamkovich

Love is like a game of chess. You're white. He's black. You wait for him to make a move, while staring into his handsome, melting-you-on-the-inside eyes, then realize what a dummy he is to not tell you straight out to go first. The beginning is the crush stage. You begin to realize how much you want to defeat him, or make him fall in love with you. By the time you get to the heat of the game, you both moved and are hopefully dating. If you haven't forfeit then because you don't want to be cheated on, you make another move- head on shoulder, hand holding, etc. Black makes another move-he gives you his jacket on a freezing night. By the endgame, he either realizes how stupid he was to play with you and forfeits, or he realizes how smart you are and lets you defeat him (and love you). By the time you win, you're married to him. A happily ever after game of chess. — Amrita Ramanathan

For me, MMA is like speed chess. It's like I'm herding a person into a certain position. Say my endgame is an arm bar. I'm not gonna actually take you and put you there. What I'm going to do is convince you that it's a good idea to move in the direction I want you to go. — Ronda Rousey

After a bad opening, there is hope for the middle game. After a bad
middle game, there is hope for the endgame. But once you are
in the endgame, the moment of truth has arrived — Edmar Mednis

I have a lot of time to think. To look at the strands of the past weave themselves into the knots of the present, and to imagine how the future might unfold from them. So many possibilities. Like a game of chess. And you, my little pawn, you are the catalyst, walking through the board one small step at a time, towards ... what? What sort of endgame will you bring us all, Orphan? — Lavie Tidhar

I detest the endgame. A well-played game should be practically decided in the middlegame. — Dawid Janowski

If you study the classic examples of endgame play you will see how the king was brought up as soon as possible even though there seemed no particular hurry at the time. — Alexander Kotov

When I am trying to understand the method of winning in the endgame with two bishops against the knight, chess is a science, when I admire a beautiful combination or study, then chess is art, and when I am complicating position in the approaching time trouble of my opponent, then chess is sport. — Ashot Nadanian

Chess teaches that actions have consequences and the wise man - or woman - will always look to the endgame ... — Tiffany Reisz

Before the endgame, the Gods have placed the middle game — Siegbert Tarrasch

My fascination for studies proved highly beneficial, it assisted the development of my aesthetic understanding of chess, and improved my endgame play. — Vasily Smyslov

To my way of thinking, Troitzky has no peer among endgame compsers; no one else has composed so many and such varied endings of the first rank. — Jose Raul Capablanca

Capablanca was among the greatest of chess players, but not because of his endgame. His trick was to keep his openings simple, and then play with such brilliance in the middlegame that the game was decided - even though his ooponent didn't always know it - before they arrived at the ending. — Bobby Fischer

The shortcoming of hanging pawns is that they present a convenient target for attack. As the exchange of men proceeds, their potential strength lessens and during the endgame they turn out, as a rule, to be weak. — Boris Spassky

King Yorandt to Kristina in book three of Fracture the Secret Enemy Saga~Secrets
release date: Summer 2014

Even the master does not play perfectly. He can only hope to make fewer mistakes than his opponent, and that in the end, he is the victor. Sajah (chess) is a ruthless game where the pieces are all pawns and the Queen is the true killer.
She spares no one to protect the king. The king however, is ruled by all of the pieces that lay before him, even his opponent. Every move is a decision that can change the whole board, and the endgame. — Virginia McKevitt

In order to improve your game, you must study the endgame before everything else. For whereas the endings can be studied and mastered by themselves, the middle game and opening must be studied in relation to the end game. — Jose Raul Capablanca

Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual ... may well be the chess book of the year ... [It] comes close to an ultimate one-volume manual on the endgame. — Lubomir Kavalek

You will already have noticed how often Capablanca repeated moves, often returning to positions which he had had before. This is not lack of deciciveness or slowness, but the employment of a basic endgame principle which is 'Do not hurry'. — Alexander Kotov