Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge

Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction
Review: Any beginning student of the chess end-game should read this book. It focus primarily on simple minor piece endgames, simple king and pawn endgames, and simple imbalanced endgame. The book is incomplete without being supplemented by a more thorough text, but is gives the beginner a solid introduction to the subject.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely "Essential" Endgame Reading
Review: I agree with the other reader who said that this is a must read for anyone under 1800 USCF.

This is a nice, neat concise book (104 pages) that covers everything you need to know about the endings to become a very strong club player.

It covers basic mates, as well as rule of the square, rook endings, philidor and lucena positions, triangulation, pawn endings, etc. etc.

This book has nice diagrams, and the explainations are excellent. This book does not weight one down with a lot of extra verbage.

Many endgame books are a real drudge to work through. This one is just the right blend of material to keep it interesting. Also, the book's petite size means that you will be able to finish it in a reasonable period of time.

Rating:
Summary: Very good start for Endgame Experience.
Review: This book is translated from Russian, so it must pass the test of time. Averbakh used very concise analysis. He gave us, immediate level, a tool to understand the endgames.
It is essential for players from beginning to intermediate levels. After a chapter about the basic mating the lone King with minimal force, it introduces the standard combats between various pieces. It explains where a forcible win is guaranteed where it's not.
Then come two chapters of piece fighting against Pawns: a Rook or a minor piece versus Pawn (it's hard to believe that in some positions a single Pawn can beat the Rook!) and the Royalty versus Pawn.
After that there are two important chapters. One is about the fighting between two minor pieces where one side has one or two extra Pawns. The part about the opposite color bishops is very instructive, some case is winnable and some not. There is so much to learn in the next chapter, which explains the Rook plus Pawn Ending. As Capablanca put it: Rook and Pawn Ending is one of the most important endings. When the Rooks join the battle, sometimes they are the last pieces, understanding this type ending can help to win or draw it.
In the second half of the book, Averbakh used practical endgames from master games to emphasize what he explained in the last three chapters: Royalty and Pawns, Minor Pieces and Pawns, and Rooks and Pawns. He analyzed where some masters failed to save or win the game.
I highly recommend this book at new or used price. I guarantee your endgame knowledge (same level as mine) will improve.


Rating:
Summary: Crib Notes to the Endgame :)...
Review: This is a must have book I think for anyone U1800... Figure the lower you are the more you need to get this book :)... This is like Crib Notes to the Endgame to be really honest with you... He makes it really simple and the book has lot of chapters making it easy to look stuff up... You can get a pretty good idea how to play the Endgame from this book... This is like the DNA to the Endgame... The building blocks that you need to go to the next level... Yes he deals with mating with King, Bishop and Knight vs. King... He does not give much time in it but if you play out the example enough... Once You understand the basic technique its really not that hard... He breaks down the book and gives least 1 example for just about anything...

The book is only about 100 pages so you will not be blitzed with too much info... I figure you get this book and if you need something more advanced later on so be it... This should get you to the stage of playing least a decent endgame... If You understand the concepts in this book you should be pretty set...

This book helped take my endgame from a disaster into winning lost endgames :)... Also just teaching the basic concepts and expanding on them really helped... The small chapters make it easy to find what you are looking for fast...

Rating:
Summary: Crib Notes to the Endgame :)...
Review: This is a must have book I think for anyone U1800... Figure the lower you are the more you need to get this book :)... This is like Crib Notes to the Endgame to be really honest with you... He makes it really simple and the book has lot of chapters making it easy to look stuff up... You can get a pretty good idea how to play the Endgame from this book... This is like the DNA to the Endgame... The building blocks that you need to go to the next level... Yes he deals with mating with King, Bishop and Knight vs. King... He does not give much time in it but if you play out the example enough... Once You understand the basic technique its really not that hard... He breaks down the book and gives least 1 example for just about anything...

The book is only about 100 pages so you will not be blitzed with too much info... I figure you get this book and if you need something more advanced later on so be it... This should get you to the stage of playing least a decent endgame... If You understand the concepts in this book you should be pretty set...

This book helped take my endgame from a disaster into winning lost endgames :)... Also just teaching the basic concepts and expanding on them really helped... The small chapters make it easy to find what you are looking for fast...