Nowadays, chessplayers spend almost all their free time preparing openings, and rarely spend the time necessary to perfect the vitally important technique of calculating. Regular training in solving and playing out endgame studies is a good recipe for eliminating that shortcoming. This training is directed at developing resourcefulness, fantasy (in chess, these qualities are called "combinative acuity"), and the readiness to sacrifice material, in pursuit of the goal - winning! How do we develop good habits of winning endgame play? There are lots of manuals, but this may be the first in which a famous practical player, a trainer with a world-renowned name, and a study composer who has earned the title of International Grandmaster of Composition, share their views in one and the same book.
Goethe once wrote, “Everything is both simpler than we can imagine, and more complicated than we can conceive.” He could well have had chess endgames in mind. Endgames have fewer pieces on the board than middlegames but this does not necessarily make them “easier” to play or understand.
Tactical expertise is, understandably, generally associated with middlegame (and sometimes opening) positions. However, tactics are also crucial in endgames – a point that is sometimes overlooked. Even some quite simple looking pawn endgames can feature complex tactical ideas. Tactics in endgames also tend to be very different to middlegame tactics. As well as the familiar themes of pins, skewers and forks, endgames also feature unique concepts that rarely occur in middlegames such as pawn breakthroughs, manoeuvring for zugzwang and active use of the king as an aggressive unit.
In this book the highly experienced chess author and coach Cyrus Lakdawala guides the reader through the complexities of endgame tactical play. Lakdawala assembles positions that are most effective to improve tactical ability. Work your way through this book and you will undoubtedly see the results in your own games.
300 tactical puzzles from real endgames!
After the opening and the middlegame, Gods have placed the endgame!
This book touches upon an important but rarely covered topic of "tactics in the endgame". Books on this subject are either rare or still not out there!
You are not alone if you have you lost games from winning positions because you did not spot your opponent's tactical shot. Or maybe you missed a tactic of your own? Inspite of your material advantage, you could not bring home the full point in the end? Practice is your only friend and coach.
This book aims to give you ample practice from tactical endgame positions to really convert that loss into a draw or a draw into a win! Watch out for the Knight forks. Check how other players sacrifice their valuable pieces to ensure the pawn promotes. Or the simplification tactics to win a won endgame!
Unlike other books which offer a high number of generic puzzles, this book has carefully chosen and manually selected high quality puzzles from real games.
Chess Masters stuff as many positions and patterns in their head as possible and this book gives you an opportunity to do that!
HIGHLIGHTS
• 300 puzzles from real games! These puzzles are not made up. The themes/patterns can occur in your games too!
• The puzzles are broken into 4 levels and are suited for players of all strength
• Alternative lines are annotated so you are not left wondering why a certain move was not plausible
• The solution is placed immediately after the puzzle and also has a accompanying diagram so you can easily visualize the variation on the board without moving back and forth
• Each solution is marked with an arrow so you can easily scan the first move without having to read the complete notation. This can also be a good way to get a hint for the first move without revealing the complete solution
No matter your skill level, this book is the right practice companion for you!
In Technical Decision Making in Chess former World Championship Challenger Boris Gelfand discusses his path to decision making in endgames and positions where one side possesses a structural or material advantage. This investigation into a top Grandmaster’s technical understanding will illuminate difficult parts of the game that many players find elusive. Concepts like the “Zone of one mistake” are certain to be a revelation to many.
This ebook is a part of Bundle: Gelfand Decision Making
De la Villa started collecting training material and selected those exercises best suited to retain and improve your knowledge and avoid common errors. In this book the Spanish grandmaster presents hundreds of exercises grouped according to the various chapters in 100 Endgames. Solving these puzzles will drive home the most important ideas, refresh your knowledge and improve your technique. This book contains a massive amount of clear, concise and easy-to-follow chess endgame instruction. The advice De la Villa gives in the solutions is practical and useful. Ideal for every post-beginner, club player and candidate master who wishes to win more games.
All through his career Jan Timman has been captivated by the mystery and splendour of endgame studies. Even during his most successful and busy years as a world-class player, Timman continued to compose studies and admire those of others. For him, there has never been any doubt that his journeys in this magical world helped him to grow as a player.
In this fascinating book, first published in 2011, Timman has collected studies by other composers and explains in his lucid style how they inspired him to create dozens of brand-new studies.
Timman has revised the book for this new edition. With the help of engines, Timman discovered that a few studies needed to be corrected or had alternative solutions. He removed six studies and replaced another six with better versions. And fourteen new studies have been added, two of which are published here for the first time.
Jan Timman is a former world championship candidate who rose to number two on the FIDE world rankings. He is the author of several highly acclaimed bestsellers, such as Timman’s Titans and Max Euwe’s Best Games. He was awarded the title of FIDE Master of Composition in 2022.
The possession of the bishop pair (vs. bishop & knight, or knight pair) is an important strategic element that may guarantee superiority and even determine the outcome of the game. In modern chess, the bishop pair has been established as a positional advantage in the majority of cases, and it’s very common nowadays to hear teachers tell their students ‘keep your bishops’ or ‘capture that bishop’.
In today’s chess, the importance given to this element has increased to the point that in some of the most popular opening variations, the main goal has become to gain the bishop pair. That is because the bishop pair can be a powerful advantage in any phase of the game. For example, it’s a lethal weapon in an attack against the king. It can also be very efficient in attacking weaknesses: one bishop can put pressure on the target, while the other attacks the defending piece. However, it is the endgame where it is particularly strong.
In this book, the authors aim to assist the reader in becoming better at finding combinations and creative solutions, constructing plans, and calculating long, forcing variations. For the purpose of instruction, the material is based on the creative output of the Austrian International Master in Chess Composition Alois Wotawa (1896-1970), using his endgame compositions from various works and publications.
This is not a book for lower-rated players and newcomers to chess as the material is seriously complex and challenging. But ambitious players will find an incredible source of interesting material that is carefully annotated.
In our final book of the series we want to show the most entertaining elements of rook and pawn endgames, plus many of the most important practical cases. Additionally, we have included more than 100 of the most entertaining studies as well as 100 rook ending tests. Part 8 of the first FIDE-approved endgame manual, written by 3 of the world leading experts: FIDE Senior Trainers IGM Mikhalchishin, IGM Grivas and IGM Balogh.