Endings

My 5-year-old (soon to turn 6) started participating in the scholastic tournaments about half a year ago. He often seemed to do well in the beginning and the middle parts of his games but mess up in the end. A friend introduced this book to us because her kids' endgame coach used it. She thought the endgames introduced in this book were easier for kids to understand and apply to their own games. (Her own kids are 5 and 8 years old. Their USCF ratings are about 1200 and 1450.) The first day I got this book and gave it to my kid, he was all excited and started studying it by reading the book and playing it out on the chess board. Before his bed time, he had read through 86 pages. I guess the author's language must be easy to understand, or my kid who's still a kindergartener couldn't possibly go through it at such fast pace. I asked him how he thought of the book. He replied, "This is a cool monster book!" As to the result from reading this book, well, his ICC rating jumped from around 1200 to almost 1400 after studying this book on his own for just 3 days. He is still working on it and has asked me to buy all the other books by the same author. My kid's USCF rating is about 1100 so I guess this book is at least great for the advanced beginners.

This book does not replace an endgame manual, not even at the beginner level. You could, for example, read Pandolfini's Endgame Course in its entirety and still get some value from this book. It is not complete.It is simply fun. Seirawan explains the ideas in words. He throws in anecdotes, tension, and humor. He goes over some of the basics in excruciating detail (for example, King+Bishop+Knight v. King, which is extremely rare in practice). He includes complete master-level endings so that you can see how it's done. His discussion of rook endings (extremely common in practice) is helpful. He finishes with a very interesting chapter on the difference between grandmaster play and the theoretically perfect moves in computer generated tablebases.Another enthralling re-print in the Winning Chess series. Most appropriate to about 1300 level, even with no prior endgame knowledge.

I'm around a 1400 player, and I found this book to be useful, for the most part (although I *still* have trouble with kbn-k!), as it will give you the ideas behind many endings. Yasser takes a building block approach, and constantly builds upon prior knowledge in a very effective way. This is, by far, the best endgame book I own.

Yasser saved one of the best of his Microsoft series for last. As in all his books, his style is easy to read and informative. It is one of the few endgame books around that doesn't bore you to tears plodding through it. It's also refreshing to see a top ranked player and author show how he blew an endgame against Kasparov, humility at its best.What is nice to see his how he attempts to teach you WHY you make a move in the endgame versus so many other books which plod you through 100's of positions trying to show you the same concept.For the advanced beginner of the lower intermediate player, this book is a fine addition to anyone's chess library.

Quite simply, the absolutely best endgame book on the market today.ALL my students love it.I used to teach primarily out of "Pandolfini's Endgame Course." (This is an excellent book, and actually has much more overall material than the Seirawan book.) But this book is better. There is a lot more verbiage and explanations. GM Seirawan takes great pains to explain the moves and the GENERAL IDEAS of the ending you are trying to learn. Its almost as good as if you walked up to the GM, sat down by his knee and said, "Master, teach me everything I need to know to play the endings competently and well." The Microsoft Press people have one of the finest teams of editors, proofreaders, etc. They have put together one of the best Chess Book series I have ever seen. I can heartily recommend the entire series.I am sure if you buy this book and study it diligently, your understanding of the end phase of the game will increase 1000%!(One minor note: The GM does a little bit of showing off in this book. Example: The ending where he has to calculate the win over 20 moves in advance is over the head of the average IM!! But I think you should expect a little of that from a player of Seirawan's capability. Remember, he was one of the country's strongest Master's well before he was out of his teens. He has won or tied for the U.S. Championship several times. He has been a Candidate for the World Championship and has won 1st Place at many International tournaments. So its not suprising to see a little chest thumping going on.)