Question existing endgame programs

[plinius]

Hi,

I want to train my pawn endgames with random King + Pawn versus King + Pawn situations (also situations with more then 6 pieces, so the normal endgame tablebases won’t do).

Is there a free program that allows to make a “subset” of an endgame table for certain given situations (like a position with 4 vs 3 pawns, where I can “tell” the program that it only needs to calculate the table for the situation that can arise from the current position, by giving some constraints)?
The only program I found so far is freezer, but that’s quite expensive. Is there a freeware solution to do this kind of endgame analysis?
Also, is there a program that gives for a certain position all the keysquares for white and black (pawn endings)?
I hope I posted in the right section, because I’m new to the forum.
Thanks in advance

[Crossroad]

Hi,

Generating 7 men endgame tables need very powerfull computers with a lot of ram, diskspace an fast CPUs. I don't think that is an option for most of us. Only in 2015 all 7 men EGT are finished (200 TB in total approximately).

I also think it's important to know the basic ideas of pawn endgames, which EGT doesn't tell you. Nobody learn endgames from EGTs. I learned a lot from an endgame book I have. The english title is 'Chess Endgame Training' by Bernd Rosen. But most of the endgames books are good, so I think you can buy any other endgame book as well. Search at Amazon for the phrase 'chess endgame' in the book section.

[plinius]

Thanks,

But I found already quite a few different books about endgames, and the problem is that they always give the same examples for complicated “corresponding squares” problems (the ones you find also on the Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corresponding_squares ).
I think I’m not able yet to find those (like the Lasker vs. Reichhelm game) by myself, so therefore I would like to be able to create and solve my own pawn-endgame studies.
And Freezer is a program that can create a tablebase with constraints (so that it doesn’t takes too long – the Lasker vs Reichelm took only some seconds), according to this site: http://www.freezerchess.com/index.php?topic=examples.

So I thought that maybe someone knew about a program with the same possibilities as Freezer, but for free…

[granturismo4ad]

This has been really helpful for me, however it can only handle an endgame with six pieces. http://www.shredderchess.com/online-...-database.html

Anything more complicated than six pieces should be given to some sort of dedicated chess engine.

Still, your best bet would be to get and study and endgame book like Silman's Basic Endgame Course.