Fundamental Chess Endings

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

The need for at least a little bit of functional knowledge of endgame play becomes a fact of life for anyone who is at least moderately serious about improving their game. On top of this, study of the endgame allows a person the ability to get inside the mechanics of play for each individual piece. So, one's comprehension of the game improves on a couple of different levels simultaneously.In this book, Karsten Muller and Frank Lamprecht give introductory coverage of every endgame combination there is, including the dreaded bishop/knight ending. While there may be books out there that cover specific endings more deeply, the amount of material covered here is comprehensive and voluminous enough that:a- a person's abilities with endgame play will be improved in a way that will carry them forward for a while to come, andb- the same person will require a fair amount of time to sit with the material and digest it.I have been working with this book for several weeks now, and I think I could possibly get through it with a fair amount of retention in about a year. But, this is first class chess education, so it simply takes time.At any rate, the authors in question are very erudite in relation to the subject matter at hand, and present the material in a way that is accessible and able to be assimilated. Everything is rendered in algebraic, with the main lines indicated in bold type, and the main subvariations in parentheses. Analysis is succinct and to the point.Now then, get to work, and embed everything in your long term memory. Then go out and defeat Anand and Carlsen with ease. Rinse and repeat.

This is one of the better engame books available and this worked and functioned well on the computer. I dont think it is as technical as voretsk.. endgame manual but covers all the important endgame theories and ones you've forgotten. as mentioned did you know the zones for queen vs queen and pawn endings. The strange position of the lone king far away from the action. A really simple way to learn the knight and bishop vs. king endgame.The masters always say this is easy to learn but these two make it so.I was able to completely beat the chess engines on this ending in one evening.definitely enjoyable read. and if you dont know the knight and bishop vs king checkmate you'll know it now.

I bought his book in the hopes of studying and improving my game in the endgames department. Sadly, this is not what this book is about.I am not sure how the book will hold up over time, physically. It is a very thick volume with a paperback cover that bends a bit under its own weight on the bookshelf.The content is a very detailed, almost encyclopaedic, compendium of endgames. I see this book more of a reference for someone who is analysing a game and wants to find a way to conduct a particular endgame, perhaps useful for correspondence games.For the chess student, there are more educational books on the topic of endgames out there.

I'm a class C player. I got this book in hopes of a continuation of Pandolfini's Endgame Course. The table of contents sure looks beautiful, since it covers a little of everything, including each advanced concepts in much more detail than Pandolfini, and others he does not cover. Some other reviewers said the ratio of pages does not match the frequency of occurrences, but I think the book gives enough pages to each topic to cover each concept.I turned to page 330 as the first lesson I wanted to look at: Queen vs Minor piece. There are diagrams from real games, with the actual moves, and they are annotated by the author. The games and analysis are very instructive, but I almost wrote a bad review because of my own mistake:In the first diagram 10.01, there is a white queen on b8 and a white king on c5. There is a black knight on e3, black king on e2, and black pawn on g2. The game continues with 1. Qg3 Kd3. The first annotation states: (1. ...Kf1?! loses the knight immediately to 2. Qf3+) Because the pawn was on the second rank, for a few minutes I assumed it was going the other direction, as if black were white. I thought 2. Qf3+ loses to 2. ...gxf3. I looked at other examples and was annoyed by the same problems, and thought the computer analysis was absent. Finally, after writing a bad review including the examples and page numbers, I realized my error. Looking at the annotation again, I now realize just how thorough this book is. The games are heavily annotated, pointing out how one side could have won sooner. A third game teaches an exception to a rule given in the second game, showing how the side with the bishop and pawn got a draw.

Excellent for amateurs and professionals. The book presents a few examples, it is recommendable after finish the book, go to other books where several examples are presented such as Fine's BCE or Sahovski's ECE. It is highly suggested to have a program suppported by ending tablebases to prove the solutions on those books. Now in this days, a chess ending book MUST have supported solutions with a computer. The best way to finish the book is with a lot of patience and try to solve each example and of course each exercise. Try to write notes in each example and use principles such as opposition, corresponding squares, "shoulder-charging", etc. The basic endings an amateur should learn by heart are basic pawn endings (few pawns), rook endings (rook vs pawn or pawns, rook and pawn vs rook) and queen endings. In queen endings is highly recommendable to learn the zones when a queen faces a pawn on the seventh rank in the rook or bishop file.

The most extensive endgame book out there. I wouldnt recommend reading it cover to cover unless you really have time for it as some of the positions are just too much but there is so much useful material in it that this book is a must if you want to improve your endgame understanding and precise calculation!