Best Chess Endgame Courses

A club player rated roughly 800 to 1800 does not need an expensive endgame course; coaches commonly advise a small core of endings plus free practice, which is received wisdom rather than a measured result. The best-documented fit by price is Chessable's 100 Basic Endgames You Must Know at $24.99 for the base trainer, $149.98 with full video (as of 8 November 2026), and by breadth ChessMood's Must-Know Endgame Theory U2000 if you are paying for the library anyway.

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Test depth: Public information only. Nobody at ChessCourseFinder has taken these courses. This page uses seller pages and linked sources read on 8 November 2026. How we review explains the limits. This page is part of our skills guides.

What endgame study involves

Endgame study has two parts, and a good course should say which one it teaches. Theory means exact positions with known results, such as whether king and pawn against king wins. Technique means plans in positions with more material: making a passed pawn, activating the king, creating a second weakness. ChessMood's study plan draws the same line, separating strategy from must-know theory, and sells a course for each (study plan).

Here is the small core that coaches commonly name, in plain terms. Treating this as the core is coaching wisdom, not a research finding.

Six positions to test yourself

Set up each position on a board or in an analysis editor, choosing the side to move yourself. Decide the result before reading the answer. All six results were checked against the Lichess tablebase service on 8 November 2026.

Our suggested reading, which is not a validated standard: if you can give and explain at least five, you already know the core, and technique is your next step. If you miss the pawn endings, start there, because no course is needed to fix that. In your own games, also count how often you reached an ending with an advantage and failed to win. That points to defending and converting more than to theory.

A sensible order of study

This is the conventional coaching order, not a tested curriculum:

1. Basic mates.
2. King and pawn endings: the square, opposition, key squares.
3. Lucena and Philidor.
4. Practical rook endings with more pawns.
5. Minor-piece endings, starting with opposite-coloured bishops.
6. Rare material, such as bishop and knight mate, only if you have time.

A free open guide's study paths broadly agree: basic mates, king and pawn endings and opposition under 1200, then Lucena, Philidor and triangulation at 1200-1600. It is one unreviewed guide, so treat those bands loosely. ChessMood's own balance points the same way: the Pawn Endgame and Rook Endgame sections of Must-Know Endgame Theory are 2h 22m of its 5h 38m, about 42%. Its bishop and knight mate section is 14m 31s.

How to practise. Roediger and Karpicke (2006) found that students who had been tested on prose passages remembered more after two days and after a week than those who restudied, and that the restudy group was the more confident one (Crossref record). Cepeda and colleagues' 2006 meta-analysis found that longer retention calls for longer gaps between study sessions (abstract record). These studies used prose and verbal material, with no chess at all, and neither measured playing strength. By analogy only, playing a position out against an engine and returning to it weeks later is a better bet for an exact theoretical position than rewatching the lesson. Spaced-repetition courses are built on a similar idea, but that does not show they raise ratings.

What to buy by level

Levels are approximate; sellers' ranges are reported as theirs.

• Under about 1000: free first. Lichess Practice has Pawn Endgames (key squares, opposition, rook pawn on the 7th against a queen) and Rook Endgames (Lucena and Philidor) (Lichess Practice).
• About 1000 to 1800: one theory-first course. Two have a seller-stated range that fits: ChessMood's Must-Know Endgame Theory U2000 (800-2000) and Chessable's 100 Basic Endgames (800-2000 on its page).
• About 1800 and up: deeper rook and pawn endgame material, such as Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. Its Chessable page states no level; it is generally treated as advanced material, and we found no source rating it for a given band.

How we chose

Selection criteria: a stated level range, a listed count of lessons or positions, a visible price, and a page we could read. Courses we saw only in search listings are marked.

The best-documented options

The "Teaches mainly" column is our reading of each syllabus or title. Confirm prices on the seller's page. Chessable shows a base MoveTrainer price and a higher price with full video.

Calculated from listed figures: Silman's with video is about $15.15 per listed hour; 100 Basic Endgames with video about $14.73; Endgame Roadmap bought alone about $52.17; ChessMood's U2000 course bought alone about $62.13. Listed hours are not study time, and the ChessMood comparison ignores that the same $948 year also opens every other course.

The two ChessMood courses are different purchases

Endgame Roadmap's sections are named after plans: "Queen wanted", "Create a passed pawn", "Activate the pieces", "The powerful King", "Create weak pawns", "When we defend". Must-Know Endgame Theory is organised by material instead. Bought alone, both cost $550, which is about 58% of the $948 Essential year.

Previews differ a lot. Must-Know unlocks 29 lessons and 28 puzzles, including the entire Pawn Endgame section: 1h 16m, about 22% of the listed time. Endgame Roadmap unlocks 15 lessons and 28 puzzles, or about 35 minutes (15%). Basic-plan access alone therefore gets you a substantial free pawn-endgame course.

Downsides, honestly

• Must-Know Endgame Theory U2000: the standalone $350 is the highest of the group. The page shows no date. Our review page explains why the URL says "endgames-you-must-know" but the course is titled differently.
• Endgame Roadmap: no date is shown, and at 3h 50m it costs more per listed hour than the Chessable video options. The study-plan page calls it the course its author is most proud of, but that is a seller recommending its own product.
• 100 Basic Endgames: the base price excludes most video. Its page states 800-2000 as the level, a seller claim.
• Silman's course: the level steps are USCF-based, so Chess.com and Lichess players cannot read their number straight across.
• Dvoretsky: the page states no level and at 24 hours with video it is long; we have not seen a source that rates it for club players, so we do not recommend it below about 1800 on evidence alone.

Refunds, and how to use them

ChessMood's refund policy covers a first subscription for 30 days from the first payment. Chessable's January 2025 post says its paid courses have a 30-day money-back guarantee; its terms were not readable to us. Either way, treat the window as a chance to test whether you do the practice. It is enough time to work through the six test positions and the first section of a course, and see whether you are solving or only watching.

Other sellers

ChessBase sells endgame material per product: its category page lists "Chess Endgames 1-14" by Karsten Mueller at EUR 299.00, while many single courses are EUR 29.90 (ChessBase FritzTrainer category, 8 November 2026). See our FritzTrainer review.

TheChessWorld lists an "Endgame for Intermediate Players Complete Bundle" as shown in search listings on 8 November 2026; we could not open the product page directly. The listing names IM Bence Szabo's Complete Endgame Manual and GM Marian Petrov's Endgame Manual for Intermediate Players ($39.99 alone) as components, and says "45-hour". We did not see the bundle price. Details are in our bundle review.

Books: Silman's Complete Endgame Course is a 528-page book whose publisher says it is designed for players of all levels (publisher page) and whose shop page listed it at $27.38 on 8 November 2026 (shop page). It is the cheapest way we found to get a syllabus organised by rating. See the books guide.

What to watch for when choosing

Chessable has two similarly named courses, "100 Endgames You Must Know" (20h video) and "100 Basic Endgames You Must Know: A Starter's Guide" (10h), plus a $24.99 Workbook of 347 puzzles (page). Check the exact title. ChessMood's study-plan page recommends Endgame Roadmap and Must-Know Endgame Theory Under 2000 together, but that is a ChessMood page recommending its own products.

Who should skip this

Skip a dedicated endgame course if your games are decided in the middlegame by tactics or hanging pieces. Fix those first, with tactics courses or calculation courses. If you convert winning positions badly, see defending and converting.

The free resource that covers the same ground

Lichess Practice covers pawn endgames and the main rook endgames at no cost, and Lichess describes no paid tier (Lichess Patron page). Its themes page showed 232,065 pawn-endgame and 341,731 rook-endgame puzzles on 8 November 2026. Our Lichess guide shows how to use them. For choosing in general, see how to choose a chess course.

If you want ChessMood's library, ChessMood's free Basic plan shows the first section of each course first.