One reason why I love endgames is schematic thinking. Often in endings, you don't have to look at specific moves but can think in long term schemes instead.
Thinking schematically means that you don’t look at specific moves or even plan, but instead just imagine which position you want to reach. When you have found your dream position, you can then try to find the moves to reach it. This thinking technique is so useful since it prevents you from getting lost in many different variations and gives you a clear position you want to reach.
Many great endgame players are known for their schematic thinking skills and Capablanca is a great example. He often made chess look easy and effortless because he was thinking in schemes and focused on the important parts of the position.
Examples
Let’s start with an straightforward example:
White has a knight for a pawn and black has no real counter play, but it’s difficult to see at a glance how white will win this game. This is the point where schematic thinking comes in: what is white’s dream scenario?
If white’s king would be on h8 and the bishop on g7, black would be mated. So this is the position white should be aiming for. And after some maneuvering black resigned in the following position:
This example nicely illustrates the idea of thinking schematically, but the positions seems highly unusual, since black couldn’t do anything. So I want to show one more example from one of my own games, where I start with limiting my opponent’s counter play before starting with schematic thinking.
White is a pawn up, has a better pawn structure and the better minor piece, so white is much better. Again the the question is how white can win this position, but before asking myself this question, I made sure that my opponent’s pieces won’t get active.
30.Rd6 Kg7 31.Bf5
Now black’s knight has no move, their king is tied to the defense of the f6 pawn and the rook can only move along the 8th rank or to e5, but after Re5 white will play e4 and the rook has to go back. So only at this point did I start with thinking schematically about how I can win the game. In the end, I brought my king up to h5, played e5 to attack the h6-pawn with my rook and won the pawn.
Endgame studies
One great way to practice schematic thinking – among other things – is solving endgame studies. When solving studies, it’s most of the time a good idea to ask yourself how to win/draw this position. Thinking like that will help you to identify the theme of a study (mating the opponents king, stalemate, …) and you avoid getting lost in many calculation many different variations without a clear goal. Let’s look at an example:
Alois Wotawa, 1935
It’s clear that white has to get at black’s king to win this game. The question is how?
The most obvious way is to bring white’s rook onto the h-file, but that is currently covered. Another way would be Ra1-Rg1-Rg3, but black can prevent this: 1.Ra1 Rb7 2.Rg1 Rb2 and white cannot recapture with the pawn after Rg3.
So through schematic thinking we noticed that black’s rook is perfectly placed so white can put black into zugzwang: 1.Ra8 Rh6 2.Ra1! Rh7 3.Rg1 Rb7 4.Rg3 fxg3 5.fxg3#
Resources
- Endgame Strategy - Mikhail Shereshevsky
- Excelling at Technical Chess - Jacob Aagaard
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