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“Hmmm Hitler invading USSR, Japan attacking Pearl Harbor, world in shambles. Now is a good time to write a book about chess endings” -Reuben Fine, 1941

A similar principle that Edward Lasker attributed to his relation is, in an ending with bishop and knight, put them on the same colour as often as possible in order to control different-coloured squares.

00:00 Intro 00:39 1.Avoid doubled, isolated and backward pawns 02:48 2.Push passed pawns as rapidly as possible 04:42 3.When ahead 1 or 2 pawns, trade pieces but not pawns 07:00 4.When behind 1 or 2 pawns, trade pawns but not pieces 07:49 5.When you have an advantage, leave pawns on both sides of the board 09:03 6.With pawns on only one side of the board, 99% of the time it's a draw (when ahead by 1 pawn) 11:36 7.Pure pawn endings are the easiest to win 12:04 8.Easiest endgames to draw are opposite colored bishops 12:56 9.The king is a strong piece, use it! 13:53 10.Don't put your pawns on the same color as your bishop 15:28 11.Bishops are better than knight in all position (except blocked positions) 16:47 12.2 bishops vs a bishop and knight constitute a tangible advantage 17:49 13.Passed pawns should be blockaded by kings or knights 19:42 14.A rook on the 7th rank is sufficient compensation for a pawn 21:03 15.Rooks belong behind passed pawn

Thank you Nelson. Personal notes: 4:42 Rule 3: When ahead 1 or 2 pawns, trade pieces but not pawns 7:00 Rule 4: When 1 or 2 pawns behind, trade pawns but not pieces 7:50 Rule 5: When you have an advantage, do not leave all your pawns on one side 19:42: Rule 14: A rook on the 7th or 2nd rank is sufficient compenation for a pawn (if it can block off the enemy's king)

Love that you basically gathered the keypoints to an interesting book that I would 100% would have never read and made it into something super interesting & easy to understand visually

I have this book, although I haven't looked at it in years. English Descriptive notation seems so archaic now. My copy came with an insert listing pages of corrections (or mistakes). At the time nobody had ever attempted such an ambitious encyclopedic treatment of chess endgames. It was inevitable there would be mistakes. In the "Queens Gambit" TV series I recall Beth Harmon telling Benny Watts "I found another mistake in Fine's book". Yes, give us more content like this.

Stuck at 1800 because I am weak in endgames… I always lose out due to time pressure in the endgames. Your video is helpful. Thank you.

I would definitely find it interesting to see more endgame techniques. Quite often I find myself with a palpable advantage and then blunder it away into a draw or loss in the late middle or end game.

Blockaded pawn doesn‘t mean backward pawn. A blockaded pawn can‘t move because there is a piece in front of it

Right now I'm thinking that I'm bad at endgame and you just post at the same time as I'm thinking that lol

Doing summaries of books and key takeaways is a great idea. Thanks!

Man, you're some kind of psychic. I've been watching video after video about the endgame because I essentially lose every game that gets down to K+P or K+P+a piece and stockfish yells at me a lot, and now you come out with this nugget of gold. Thank you :)

I’m so glad that you found this old book and summarize the 15 rules. This was very interesting. Nice job

Great teaching, great concepts and PACE. Many others are moving at lightspeed and are difficult to follow. Bravo.

There was a time when Fine's book was well respected. Then in the 1970s, numerous errors were found in the analyses, causing players like GM Larry Evans to comment that he had a lot less faith in the book than he once did. When you see these generalizations, just remember that, as with almost any chess principle, the real answer is "it depends" - it depends on the position. Anyway, a red flag should be raised anytime someone say "99% of the time" (or 99.9% of the time, etc.), as the statement is almost always an exaggeration. Humans have a weak understanding of probability.

I love how simple yet complex the endgame phase is! Thanks for another amazing video Nelsi

Amazing teaching skills and very straight to the point! Thanks. Subbed

I haven't played chess in years, but this is a really good tutorial! You can learn a lot in 22 minutes! Excellent presentation! You make it seem easy. Well done!!

Its so cool to see you use all of these old resources. There's so much knowledge out there. Databases and engines are not the only resources! I love how you've been doing this.

On rule number 2: “can still win the game using that” that is the point of Reuben Fine using that pawn to the advantage not necessarily protecting it to promote to queen like you were explaining. That is why he is a GM.

Wow. Thanks for sharing. Those are really helpful rules to follow.

Really enjoy your videos with understandable analysis and exploring options of each position

Great stuff there. I'll be happy to see more advanced concepts covered in videos like this one. Keep up the great work brother.

This was great, thank you. I don't think I would like a more indepth video, but this was right on my level.

I love your channel Nelson! I really like the format of videos which are on the short side, with easily digestible lessons. You also have a really nice way of imparting chess theory. Cheers,

Love the way you reference old books vs stockfish odds, very good to analyse

Your content is so useful that every video I feel like adds up a little brick building my chess knowledge, it's perfectly sumarize, it really shows you spend time preparing your content. Thanks Nelson

Really great video, Nelson! Thank you!

General rules are what I would like much more of :) Well done :) Thank you :)

Thank you ! There is a revised version of this book by Pal Benko, and the conclusion now contains 20 rules.

I'm so glad KZfaq recommended you. Thank you for everything, it's a huge help!

Oh geez, another high quality content! Great video as always

Ive Got a 60s paperback edition,I'd forgotten about that list. Take it out tomorrow, time for a review.thanks.

Helps understanding the endgame. Thanks for sharing

Mr Nelson ur channel is the best chess channel on youtube. I wish u to become a GM. U desereve it

Excellent! Thank you.

Nice, all your videos have been quite instructive.

I have a copy of the same book. Many years ago, when chess engines had been developed, I decided to put some of the positions from the ook into the engine. Now, I can't recall what games they were, but, I found at least 2 endings, that Fine said were wins for white, that were in fact draws! So I tried other books and found that the expert's conclusions were also wrong. So you should be careful with these old books. Modern, powerful chess engines can often come to completely different conclusions with some of the positions.

You know I've never read a chess book. I came to know most of these endgame principles after thousands of games. For anyone trying to progress up the ranks, I imagine reading chess books is a must.

I enjoy hearing all the principles and instruction you go over I’m not a beginner my game does need improving for sure it’s more relaxing for myself to listen in sometimes instead of playing less anxiety producing

Loved it! More, more, more please!!!

I really love your endgames and tactics videos. I really think they are one of the best ones on KZfaq.

Learned a lot from this - great video

i love how this author managed to figure all of this out way before there were computers to suggest or confirm anything 😀 ... thanks for dragging this ancient tome out ... this information is invaluable!

Awesome stuff.... seriously this is the channel which provides all sort of info to improve the game

LOVED this vid - thanks a lot.

Thanks. good rules to remember, simple.

Solid stuff. Thank you!

Great video Nelson. I'm trying to break 1200 for the first time and I think these principles will really help 👍

I have had that book for years but never thoroughly read it. Thank you for pointing out the list of rules in the back!

Great video. Sure I would like to see more

I owned a copy of BCE and it might still be somewhere in my mother's house. I wasn't ready for it at all (was in high school) but I managed to get through the basic mates and about two-thirds of the K+P endings. It was just too big and exhausting. So when I returned to the game after college, having heard about the importance of endings, I studied Averbakh's "Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge" pretty hard, and I one my next tournament and in two tournaments bumped up from an 1100 to a 1300 Elo. I'm returning to the game again in retirement and, yes, I've got a couple of endgame books to start my study (De La Villa and Silman). I hope it's as helpful.

Good video. Funny have Fine’s endgame book, but never waded thru it & didn’t know it summarized endgame rules at the end!

Very interesting. Thanks!

Well presented using the rules as an outline.

Thankyou for sharing important rules.

Very informative, thanks.

Really enjoyed this.

Love it your teaching style is awesome man please make more endgame videos

Amazing Video Like Always. These types of videos are my favorite, very instructive and helpful. Keep up the great work Nelson.

It is really very very interesting! Thanks, Nelson

Excellent stuff

Excellent video, liked and subbed.

Hey nelson, I love this channel it taught me chess for a long time but can you teach me how to trade properly because after some long trades I feel like I'm in more losing positions

I had that book and the Art of the Chess combination by Znosko-Borovsky when I was a kid and studied them all the time. My openings sucked, but if I survived to the middle game, I always won.

The rule about trading pieces and not pawns when up a pawn or 2 is somethjng I never thought about and this just gained me 100 ratings thank you so much! Everything about this video is so simple and easy to follow but I never thought about

Nice. Thank you

10:33 Zugzwang is much rarer if there are other pieces, especially line-pieces (e.g. bishops). I think the point is that if the only way one side can win is using zugzwang, the position is probably drawn.

A "blocked pawn" is a rather general term that describes a pawn that cannot advance because the square above it is occupied by pieces or pawns and in certain rare cases it can be blocked by a fellow pawn as in doubled pawns the rear one is blockaded. This is different from a backwards pawn, which is a pawn that is behind all pawns on the adjacent files and cannot be safely advanced. A backwards pawn is frequently blockaded, forces built up behind the blockader, then when the blockader moves, can be attacked and won.

You are one of the best channels I follow. Hands down.

Great endings book, good chess presentation!

excellent class.

Another great video brother

I currently have this book, I borrowed it from my uni library. It's s do old that it makes it hard to understand and super long, but that also makes it kinda cool

I've read Fine's book, but seeing it explained by you is informative.

I was blown away. Not because of the rules but when he said horses change color every time they jump. I never noticed that. Excellent video overall, thank you

I have read that book. Its an excellent one. I wish I remember more of it.

Very nice lecture Coach

Great video, I could use all the endgame help you have to offer haha

Just for reference, I'm 1820 rated and the majority of these were not new to me, but definitely not all of it! The combination of what to trade when up or behind (rule 3 & 4) makes sense, but I've never seen it stated like that. Then there's rule 13, which might be a bit more position dependent, but is good to think about. Great video.

Thanks for the video game informative 👍 for a beginner

I loved this video. Yes, more like it please.

Great Video!♟

Thanks Nelson! I would love to see a rating climb where you trade down into a winning endgame each game. I think would be instructive! Or just any type of rating climb.

It may be an old book, but its author was seven times U.S. Open champion and a four time Olympiad gold medalist. He tied for first at the famous 1938 AVRO chess tournament with Paul Keres ahead of two world champions (one past and one future), Mikhail Botvinnik and Max Euwe. His endings book was the best work on the subject for years, despite some errors. It would not be a stretch to say that Fine was one of the best players in the world in the 1930s. The Second World War and his career in psychology kept him from a legitimate chance at being world champion himself. Fine may have been the best American chess player after Frank Marshall and before Bobby Fischer. Just some FYI. Nice recap of the 15 rules for endgames. God bless.

Great video, solid list that you can remember in the endgame

these rules are so good, tell us more from the old book -)

again very useful

I can understand the confusion but I checked the book and I think Fine meant blockade. "blockade" appears 57 times while "backward" is only mention once in the context of passed pawns, which aren't even necessarily connected, (406) "If the more advanced pawn is not yet on the seventh in such cases, there may still be time to make use of the more backward one." The most explicit evidence for his intent is Example NO 81 (Page 40) "shows why blockaded pawns are such a serious handicap".

good stuff !

Ngl, the video idea is amazing

Sir Nelson your contents are always great.

Would love to see a series of video about rules for different types of endings. King & pawn endings. Rook endings. B v N endings

Nice video, I'm new at chess, I haven't read any book so I like this idea

Blockaded pawns are pawns blocked by pieces, especially isolated ones or pawns that are pushed past their support if I'm remembering the terminology. I saw something based on this book before and I'm like 1300 so if it is too complex for my scrub mind or have no brain my apologies

fascinating!

Your channel is insane good. I dont get why u dont have more subs

Endgame is the less studied but most important part if the game. It can be classified due to little presence of pieces and technique helps when one is tired after playing opening and middle game.

holy crap I clicked on this video randomly and noticed the book straight away, I bought it in an old book shop a few weeks ago! I cant read the notation but its still a cool book. I wonder how rare it is