I was wondering if anyone here knew what is the origin of the term “and so we enter endgame” or “and now we enter endgame”
Thanks 
Give us something hard.
Like coding! :smack:
(I fixed the link in the above quote.)
Games like chess can be divided into the opening, the middle game, and the end game. Openings and end games can be subject to rigorous analysis…there are hundreds of “canned” openings, where every possible sensible move is worked out in advance. Likewise, the endgame is when the positions have been simplified such that an analysis of every potential move is possible, so you can tell in advance whether, for instance, a knight, a pawn and a king can always force a win against a king and a rook.
The middle game is generally too complex for such analysis, you have to rely on general principles, or methods of collapsing the game into an endgame situation where you are guaranteed a win.
Thanks.
Now that we know you use it in chess I was thinking how a phrase like that would get into someone’s regular vocabulary. It came to my attention that a friend of mine and myself will sometimes say it, and we’re wondering where we got it. So I was wondering if there was something we could have heard it from. Maybe television, or do they actually say “endgame” in chess.
A more modern use of the word occurs in MMORPGs like FFXI and WoW. Activities aimed at maximum-level players are referred to as “end game” activities. It usually consists of going after the game’s most difficult monsters in the game’s most difficult level environments for the game’s best equipment and tradeskill items.
It’s also known (to me, at least) as the part of the game where everything you learned about playing the game gets shot to hell.
Well, Principal Skinner says it on The Simpsons in the episode The Boy Who Knew Too Much, when he begins tracking Bart down on a day when he forged a note from his mother to skip school. He finds a wad of bubble gum on the sidewalk (“a spoor!”), bends over to taste it (yuk!), and proclaims, “His brand of gum… Doublemint. Trying to double your fun, eh, Bart? Well, I’ll double your detention. Heh. I wish someone was around to hear that.” Then he hitches up his belt and declaims: “And so we enter… Endgame.”
Of course it really, really sounds like a movie reference. But that’s where I remember this from best. (“Oh, my God… He’s like some kind of… Non-giving up… School guy!”)
I too think it’s from chess - like ‘stalemate’, ‘zugswang’, ‘gambit’ and ‘checkmate’.
These words don’t always mean the same in languuage as they do in chess.
Chess endgames are easier to assess, allow deeper calculation and mean the end of the game is usually near.
Stalemate in chess means one player has no legal move and the game is drawn. In language it usally means neither opponent can move without incurring a disadvantage (e.g. because of Mutual Assured Destruction, there is a stalemate between the US and the Soviets). However the chess term for this is zugswang!
The openings haven’t been worked out in the same way as the endings.
It’s true that millions of game openings have been catalogued, so you can tell if you’re following a game between two grandmasters.
But the resulting positions can only be assessed by whether you like them or not. Opinions on opening variations do change, especially when a new move is discovered.
However computer databases have collected every possible endgame position with 5 pieces or less (they’re working on 6 pieces*).
So in any position with both kings and just 3 other pieces, it is known whether it is a win, loss or draw and in how many moves and which moves are correct.
There used to be free access to such databases (one was called Belle) on the Internet, but the sites keep changing. Here’s the commercial product:
‘The 5 discs that make up the product contain the exact solutions to literally every endgame with five pieces or less, the kings counting as pieces. They also include some endings with 6 pieces such as knight and 2 pawns versus rook, rook and 2 pawns versus rook, and the like.’
http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/jwatsonbkrev65.html
*if you exclude pawns, the analysis is easier (no promotion).
Here’s a forced win in 243 moves :eek: :
White King c7, Rook b7, knight b8
Black King g1, knights f6, f2
I agree on the :eek:… I would expect KRN to be an overwhelming advantage over KNN, and it seems remarkable that it could take so long to force the win. All you’d have to do would be to get the king and one of the knights on the same row or column, and pin or fork them with your rook, and your opponent loses one of his horsies. Repeat for the other one (if it’s even necessary), and you’re down to the trivial KR vs. K
And “endgame” isn’t something that a player is likely to say: Both players will know an endgame when they see one, with no need to state the obvious. It is, however, something that a commentator on the match might point out: At the end of a series of captures which leaves only a handful of pieces on the board, a commentator might say something like “And with that, we enter an endgame of XXXX vs. XXX.”. It’s worth noting, too, that endgames are actually comparably rare in high-level chess: More typically, a player will recognize far earlier that he’s too far in a hole to be able to get out of it, and will resign while there are still many pieces on the board. As a result, there are a few otherwise strong players who just don’t know how to play endgames, even though they’re (in principle) the simplest part of the game.