Pawn Races | Principles of Chess Endgames | GM Naroditsky

In this video, we explore the second fundamental concept that undergirds pawn endgames: pawn races! As we find out, pawn races aren’t just about blindly pushing a pawn toward promotion. Winning pawn races involves a great deal of skill, and we outline five crucial rules that will help you make the most of all pawn race situations. Having mastered these rules, you can be sure that you will pull out pawn race victories even in objectively lost positions!

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305 Comments

  1. All your videos have helped me play better over the board thank you Daniel

  2. Maaaan, you could easily charge 200 dollars for a chessable course with the exact same content 🙂 the hero we need but don`t deserve 🙂

  3. In his scotch gambit, amazing endgame from his speed run series 3 months ago.
    It features most of these principals.

  4. Daniel, when comes the next episode of that series?

  5. Very enjoyable, very interesting series of video. Thanks for the content. A french viewer

  6. These are amazing! I love the systematic format, definitions, rules, etc. I've seen other "teaching" videos about endgames but they seem to be mostly examples or "here's the right move" without giving me a framework for learning the principles. This series, though, resembles that of a professor who is organized and prepared to teach. Great job!

  7. Excellent. Thank you. I have a suggestion/idea for this series. You might consider numbering them either in the video thumbnail or the title so that other people who come across them know what order to watch them in. This won’t really affect me, as I’ll be watching for new videos to be released, but if this does end up being 50+ videos, that might be helpful. Thank you for putting the effort into making these. Very helpful.

  8. Daniel – wonderful stuff! A suggestion – when you present a position it would be helpful right from the beginning to hear board orientation and first to move. It will help us set up the position while watching and not give away the subsequent solution. Again. appreciate the content – I'm an intermediate who's started weekly coaching and this is where we've been spending our time – a timely supplement to my coaching.

  9. It's hilarious how nervous Daniel is and yet he's one of the best chess teachers out there. This is great material.

  10. These endgame videos are a refreshing change from the millions of opening videos on YouTube. Thank you Danya.

  11. Thanks very much, Danya.

    I hope you are getting good compensation from the work you put into your content. You are such a natural effortless teacher: articulate, clear, structured, passionate, and methodic.

    Keep them coming, brother.

    Cheers from Colombia!

  12. The second position requires no calculation. The position is symmetrical so both will make the same amount of moves and obviously queening first controls the queening square of the other player.

  13. Loving this series! A great explanation of endgames and I'm already seeing dividend in my games.

  14. Such an awesome, uniquely yours, video and youtube chess lesson. Thanks, Daniel

  15. I wanted to run away from endgames at all costs, now I look forward to it

  16. Thank you for this endgame series! I actually just won a completely lost endgame because of elements you taught in this video! I eagerly await future entries in this highly informative series. Thank you!!

  17. this video is great! I think the hardest part is identifying that a pawn race will definitely happen

  18. This is the greatest end game series on youtube

  19. Thanks man…

    edit : you don't have to worry if the video is longer than usual…as the content is pure gold….i don't think anybody is going to complain about that ….if they think it's long ….they can go take a break and come back later and finish it🤷.

  20. 26:22 – I'm sitting here staring at the board for 10 minutes, thinking each pawn is about to promote on the next move, not able to figure out how black is going to skewer white. I unpause the video and Danya's like, "The pawns are going the opposite direction." And then the exercise is much easier! If only there were numbers and letters on the board that made it easy to tell which way the pawns were going. There are? Oh, right. Maybe I should look at those more often.

  21. Thanks Danya, I took a lot away from this, really appreciate it! 🙂

  22. PROBLEMS WITH THIS MANS ADVICE! Now I have so many new concepts to take into account when moving I will inevitably lose in time. So now I play better moves but they take me approx a month before I push. Now I can blame you Dan! 😉

  23. I played like Grandmaster Amin Tabatabaei

  24. 8:50 Rule 1: Don‘t take unnecessary pawns.
    15:15 Rule 2: Don‘t put your king in the checking zone of your opponents passing pawns.
    25:05 Rule 3: Simultaneous queen promotion doesn’t always imply a draw.
    29:30 Rule 4: Use your king to force the other king into the checking zone of your passing pawns or to prevent the other king from stopping your pawn.
    41:45 Rule 5: Prepare for a pawn race by pushing the prospective passer beforehand.
    41:55 Bonus rule: You don‘t always have to participate in a pawn race.

  25. I finally found my sensei 🤚🏽🤛🏽☯️

  26. I only know about 2 races of pawn. Black and withe.

  27. This series is great, they make endgames seem fun! Thanks for the great content!

  28. Very nice explanation and an amazing series. Thank you

  29. Just going through these videos again to cement them more, but always thanks for this content. Well thought out. Well researched. Extensive. We don't deserve it. Thank you

  30. wow holy shit, you're right there's so much hidden depth&complexity to pawn races

  31. wait, in your last example, what if black pushes b4! in anticipation of white giving up the race? now white either does the same on K-side and comes back to black K escorting connected pawns on Q-side, or participates in the race and loses as before?

    edit: oh, white takes h4! from black and wins the race w/ that extra tempo

  32. 10:39 you could say who is first to move cuz i calculate first is white and I saw win even with grabbing a pawn

  33. Amazing video, very instructive. It’ s a pleasure to hear you and see how you enjoy these artistic positions!

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