# Who has the best endgame technique in chess history?

> The part of the game where the crowd leaves and the position looks dead. These are the players who kept finding something in it anyway.

*By YPB Team · Published September 16, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/who-has-the-best-endgame-technique-in-chess-history*

---

## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **José Raúl Capablanca** — score 1000/1000
   The name most endgame manuals open with.
2. **Anatoly Karpov** — score 850/1000
   Turned tiny advantages into wins with no visible effort at all.
3. **Mikhail Botvinnik** — score 485/1000
   Adjournment analysis so thorough it became a Soviet discipline of its own.
4. **Emanuel Lasker** — score 485/1000
   Practical, stubborn and very hard to grind down.
5. **Bobby Fischer** — score 485/1000
   Bishop endings that look simple until you have to hold one.
6. **Vladimir Kramnik** — score 397/1000
   Technique precise enough to beat Kasparov without losing a game.
7. **Garry Kasparov** — score 397/1000
   Feared in the middlegame, and better in endings than his reputation suggests.
8. **Akiba Rubinstein** — score 291/1000
   The rook-and-pawn specialist a century of players learned from.
9. **Ulf Andersson** — score 291/1000
   Built a career on squeezing endings everyone else agreed were drawn.
10. **Viswanathan Anand** — score 291/1000
   Fast and accurate once the pieces come off.
11. **Viktor Korchnoi** — score 291/1000
   Defended endings nobody else believed could be held.
12. **Magnus Carlsen** — score 291/1000
   Wins positions that engines call dead level.
13. **Vasily Smyslov** — score 0/1000
   His rook endings are still taught move by move.

Tags: sports, chess, players, all-time, endgames