Basic Chess Endings

Rating:
Summary: Essential endgame text
Review: The classic English language endgame book. Contains analysis of nearly all of the important simple endgames and a good representation of more advanced ones. Essential for anyone aspiring to be an advanced player (USCF rating >1800). However there are some analyses which have later been shown to be incorrect. When in doubt, run a position through your computer to confirm.

Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive? Yes. Helpful? Maybe. Interesting? No way.
Review: This book is NOT a learning tool. It is for more experienced players with a need to refer to certain endgame positions. Players new to endgame study should AVOID this tome. I wish I had. When I was just an 1800 USCF player, I had access only to this dry, pedantic, boring, dictionary and hated endgame study for years after. I am rated 2300 USCF now, and I wouldn't wish my worst enemy use this book for improvement purposes. Unless, you really want to learn endgames the hard way. buy something else

Rating:
Summary: Get the updated version of this book
Review: This book was written over the course of one summer. That, alone, is an incredible feat. But the book is not user friendly. It is written in encyclopedic form. It is written in descriptive (old style) notation. It is hard to follow the lines of notation, as little guidence is given to the reader if he is in the main variation or a subvariation.

In order to squeeze in as many words as possible, the book is extremely dense in terms of presentation. There is hardly any blank space in the margins of this book. It's a forboding book to study from.

That being said, it's an excellent book. However, McKay has republished this book recently (2004). The new edition is revised by GM Pal Benko, an authority on endgames. The notation is updated from descriptive to algebraic. The layout in the new book is not as dense as this book.

So, no one should buy this book; thus the poor rating. Buy Benko's revision of this book/



Rating:
Summary: a classic masterwork on chess endings
Review: This is a great but also a difficult book. Because it deals with a very complex subject, moreover is not an approachable text for chess newbies, therefore I should not award it more than four stars-- it's not for all!
Yet this great marvel ought to be on the book shelf of any chess master! For having so many hundreds of pages of clear (and dry) examples in this book ; this has stood the test of time. Now it is revised, in-print and in the newer algebraic notation format. The couple of dozen errors which were unknowable to anyone before computer analysis of endgames was available have been ammended by Grandmaster Pal Benko.
Honestly I can think of easier endgame books, like Auerbach's 5 volume set (now available on a cd-rom by Convekta-dot-com a russian publishing house) or certainly the are simpler rook ending books such as Emm's work and simpler pawn-ending books like Fishbein's work. but Reuben Fine-- the greatest US contender for the world chess championship before RJ Fischer--the man Botvinnik (and the soviet system of chess) most worried about before he gave up chess for medicine-- knew his stuff better than the rest.
Don't ever try to read this kind of book straight on. Look at your own chess games. Look at the type of endings which you are playing right now. Then study those ending-types in Fine's taxonomy of endings via the book index. This method will make you fearless of the ending. You will more willing to play strategic chess with complex endings instead of rock'em sock'em blitz. You will enjoy longer time-controls. This kind of book can change a young man's chess game alot. But you have to put the work into this book to get that. So it's not for all players.