Good Endgame Transitions

Hey all,

Since I've had this account I've pretty well hovered around the 1550 rating level for months and months and am not seeing much change. Obviously a lot of this has to do with just missing a mate in x, hanging a piece by moving a defender, walking into a pin, or even just counting attackers wrong, etc. the typical problems for players making a transition from my level to the next.

But I have one other major problem, and I find that quite a large number of my games, I get a slight advantage out of the opening, I increase that advantage in the middle game, and then I fail to convert, often equalizing or outright giving away a piece when I could have easily won an endgame. I tend to do a very good job in endgame calculation, and when I see a good transition, I often prep it by moving my king into the game, force the trades, and then find an easy win.

However, I often don't see a way to transition, and sometimes when I do see that I have a winning endgame, I end up losing my advantage in trying to force the trades to get to said endgame. In fact, a large number of my blunders come from putting myself into harms way or equalizing from a substantial advantage because I just don't know how to capitalize and end up shuffling pieces around trying to find a mate that isn't there.

So, my question to you all is this: are there any good videos, books, etc. that deal explicitly with HOW to transition to a winning endgame when you have one? I really think if I could start pushing more of my games into an endgame, I would either start winning more games in the middle game as my opponent blunders trying to avoid the force, or I'd get more games to the endgame and simply outplay them. This would go a long way into getting me to the next level, I think, but I have found absolutely no way to do it consistently.

Any help appreciated! Cheers!

Look into the book Liquidation on the Chessboard by Joel Benjamin. Haven't read it but enjoy watching his ICC banter blitz sessions.

@Fenris1066

Feel free to play some training games against me (corr. chess), and/or give me some 50 to 100 of your slower time control chess games to view (in pgn), and I could give you some suggestions to improve.

It would have been nice if you had provided two or three example games where your problems are displayed!

Agree with #4 StefanGER :
Some example games with the troubles would be very useful !

Fenris1066: So, my question to you all is this: are there any good videos, books, etc. that deal explicitly with HOW to transition to a winning endgame when you have one?

I think the point is you haven't understood that the fact that you need to transit to a won endgame means you DON'T have a won endgame. If you have a won endgame you wouldn't need to transit to it. :)

LOL #6: What the hell does that even mean?! Thanks for your worthless contribution. It sounds like some craptastic philosophical hullabaloo. By "winning endgame" I obviously mean one in which once pieces come off the board, there is an advantage, not a draw or an outright loss. Obviously it still has to be won and you still have to get to it, the latter part being the whole goddamn point of this post!

#4 and 5: I didn't include games to specifically illustrate MY particular issue here, because I thought it was pretty clear what I was getting at. My point was that I see a LOT of videos about middle game, tactics, strategy, endgame, openings, etc. and hundreds of books on each. But I don't see much of anything dealing specifically with transitions: the key issue most intermediate players find trouble with. We struggle with transitioning out of the opening into the middle game, and we struggle with transitioning out of the middle game into an endgame where we have an advantage...i.e. we struggle with positioning pieces after we've developed everything, and we struggle with liquidating them to get to an endgame that we can win.

So, I guess at least thanks to #2 for giving me a piece of information that was requested. So does anyone else have more books/videos like this regarding the subject of liquidating material? Thanks.

what can we even say without any examples?
i don't think i have ever "directly" studied anything like this subject tbh, just improving your technique will indirectly deal with the issues.

like uh, regarding the "transition" to opening to middlegame, if you don't know what to do with your pieces after you've parroted the theory, that actually indicates a lack of opening understanding.
and to get to a good endgame, even after you get a sizable middlegame advantage, you still have to keep playing good moves (aka "placing your pieces in good squares"). your opponent isn't just going to comply and trade everything into a winning ending for you.

i get the feeling that you are looking for some magical tome of Forcing Endgame Liquidation.
there often won't be a way to force liquidation, so don't try to force liquidation if that's going to relinquish a bunch of your advantage. just keep increasing the pressure and the opponent will have to make concessions or the liquidation will naturally happen

Haha. What I meant is that if you see a won endgame behind a lot of transitions but don't know how to execute these transitions without coming in trouble it is possible that the position isn't suitable for going for that endgame.