Trading Pieces When Ahead

About this lesson

A piece up, the natural instinct is to attack. The right instinct is to trade. Every exchange makes your extra piece a larger share of what remains, and every pawn kept is a future queen. This lesson is about which trades convert an advantage and which endgames throw it away.

What you will learn

• 01 Why trading pieces, not pawns, is the rule when you are ahead.
• 02 How to offer exchanges the opponent cannot easily refuse, and what refusing costs them.
• 03 The drawn endings to avoid: opposite-coloured bishops, rook against rook and pawn, the wrong rook pawn.
• 04 The reverse rule when you are behind: keep pieces on and complicate.

The rule of thumb

Four sections. A position where White is a piece up and offers rook and queen trades, leaving Black to choose between losing time and a lost ending. The pawn rule: with a bishop against nothing White still needs pawns to win, so each pawn exchange is a step towards a draw. A position where White is a pawn up with opposite-coloured bishops and it is a dead draw anyway. And the general statement: when ahead simplify, when behind complicate, because material wins endings, not middlegames.

Club players a piece up do two things wrong. They keep attacking with everything, hand the opponent tactical chances and lose the piece back. Or they trade everything in sight, pawns included, and arrive at an ending they cannot win. Before each trade, name the ending you are heading for and check that it wins.

How to practise it

The quiz puts you a bishop up twice: first asked to simplify, then with two rooks each and a choice of which trade. One move each, by voice or tap. This lesson is in Pro. The endgames module, with Stockfish 16 running in the browser, is where you then play the simplified positions out.

Questions people ask

Should you trade pieces when ahead in material?

Yes, pieces but not pawns. Fewer pieces mean fewer chances for the opponent to create counterplay, while your pawns are what eventually win the ending.

Which endgames are drawn even with extra material?

Bishops of opposite colour with one extra pawn, rook against rook with one pawn in many positions, and a bishop with a rook pawn whose queening square it does not control.

Is Trading Pieces When Ahead free?

No, it needs Pro: $6.99 a month or $49 a year.