Fearing Dvoretsky

Let me say this right away to anticipate criticism: Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual is not a good way to introduce yourself to chess or even to the endgame, and it's not a good choice for an intermediate player who wants an overview of endgame basics.

Instead I'm suggesting that this sensible advice has been exaggerated into something of a meme in the chess community which dissuades all but the strongest players from enjoying and learning from one of the best chess books ever written. As soon as the book is mentioned in a forum you can be sure that someone unfamiliar with it will pounce to proclaim that no one should read it. A titled player once told me that he's always been intimidated by the book's reputation and hasn't browsed through it or even read the preface.

This sort of thing happens in other fields too. Many people avoid reading literary classics with reputations for being serious or difficult. I've spent a lot of time convincing students and friends that, despite their length, the two great novels of Tolstoy, Anna Karenina and War and Peace, are actually very accessible; and although the archaic language of Shakespeare is an obstacle for many people, it's good to remember that those plays were written not for ivory tower scholars but for the popular commercial theater.

In what follows, I explore some aspects of Dvoretsky's book in order to temper this pessimistic view, and look at how an endgame "manual" can be used by anyone, without suggesting that everyone should run out and buy it.

What is an endgame "manual"?

It's important to remember that Dvoretsky's book is not an introduction, or survey, or course, or primer, or encyclopedia, but a manual. The author himself distinguishes between a handbook, which he says need only contain solutions, and a manual, which should contain explanations (this is probably a distinction between two Russian terms rather than the English ones). A reference manual is not designed to be read from cover to cover, but to be easily consulted on particular topics.

I haven't read through the entire book, but I don't think it's necessary or even advisable for most people. Studying endgames is one of my favorite things about chess, so it is perhaps natural that I should use this book, even though I'm not a strong player. Initially I read through a few complete books about endgame fundamentals, and such a survey is probably essential, but I've changed the way I study endgames.

Instead of reading new surveys of endgame fundamentals, I choose a particular endgame, such as rook versus two pawns or bishops of the same color, and then create studies myself by comparing sections from various endgame books. There is great value in comparing different explanations about the same subject: sometimes one will resonate more than another, and, in any case, repetition is valuable. In this piecemeal approach it would be foolish not to see what Dvoretsky has to say on a topic.

The prefaces

It's worth examining what the author and others say about the book in the prefaces and forwards of various editions. The author's introduction to the first edition fills up three pages and contains not only valuable insights about the study of endgames, but also interesting details about chess history, including how he came to teach and lecture about chess, and his role in another famous book, Endgame Strategy by Mikhail Shereshevsky.

In describing his own manual, however, Dvoretsky writes: "That is why this book was written: it offers the basic information you need as the foundation of your own personal endgame theory." And after sketching out his history as an endgame trainer, and the types of materials he accumulated in throughout his career, which form the basis of his book, he says "they proved to be universal and useful for players of widely different levels: from ordinary amateurs to the world's leading grandmasters."

In the forward to the 3rd edition, Jacob Aagaard describes his success in using the book with juniors, and in the newest forward to the 5th edition, Vladimir Kramnik says "I consider Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual an absolute must for every chess professional, and no less important even for a club player....I always recommend this book for everyone."

Of course there are some obvious problems with putting too much stock in these statements. For one, the author had an interest in selling as many copies as possible, and the whole point of contributing a forward is to promote the book. It's also questionable, as someone pointed out in the forum recently, whether top players and top trainers really understand "ordinary amateurs" and their needs.

The content itself

You might think that an endgame manual of this stature—sometimes called an endgame Bible—contains a complete survey of endgame theory. In fact, Dvoretsky's book covers less ground than something like John Nunn's two volume work on endgames. One of its great achievements is the judicious selection of material, as Kramnik describes:

"There are many existing theoretical endgames and it is impossible to remember them all. It is therefore necessary to select those which have a "basic structural value." I think Dvoretsky succeeded in doing this very well, making outstanding and painstaking efforts to select the "endgame knowledge base" for a chess player. The book contains all that you NEED to know and sets aside everything superfluous, or more precisely, what is not so necessary to remember."

Dvoretsky talks about the selection process in his introduction and laments the difficulty of omitting many instructive and interesting ideas. If the book were intended only for chess masters and professional players, therefore, it would be strange for him to include things like key squares, the rule of the square, and the Lucena and Philidor positions, which are covered in all introductions. As I've said, however, that does not mean that it constitutes an introduction itself.

The blue and greyed text

In addition to the judicious selection of the content, Dvoretsky also performed a secondary selection process by putting the most elementary material in blue text. In the newest 5th edition the blue text has been replaced by grey highlighting. This can be used by strong players to decide which things should absolutely be memorized, but for those players who are intimidated by the book, it's possible to simply read the highlighted text and ignore the rest or save it for a later time. In fact, this highlighted material has now been collected and published in a FastTrack Edition, which is half as long as the original, in order to make this even easier.

Precision, concision, and style

Even in endgame books, even some recent ones, it's not uncommon to see current engines refute the analysis of an expert, so if you're trying to set foundations for your own understanding, it's comforting to know that Dvoretsky enjoys a reputation for deep and accurate analysis.

His concision is another matter. On the one hand, it's extremely valuable to have lots of explanatory prose, in order for students to have a rich evaluation of positions, and this is often lacking in introductory books in my opinion. On the other hand, even some books written for higher levels, such as those of John Nunn, offer lots of explanatory prose. Dvoretsky's book is a manual, as I have said, and for that purpose it is valuable to have very concise and well-chosen explanations so that it can be consulted easily for study, and he achieves that aim well.

There's one feature of the book that is actually very valuable for novice learners and that is the vivid descriptive phrases peppered throughout the book. In my experience as a teacher, these mnemonic devices are extremely valuable both for the understanding and retention of new ideas. Although I'm not sure how many of them were invented by Dvoretsky himself, I consult many endgame books, and his clearly outshines others in this regard.

If you consult a section of his book to study an endgame, you'll find such summary phrases and metaphors such as autopilot, tailhook, chasing two birds, the pendulum, pawns in the crosshairs, widening the beachhead, moving downstairs, the umbrella, mined squares, and others. These can serve as mnemonics, but they also help to understand strategic ideas themselves, and make it much easier to write and talk about with other players.

Who should use Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual?

As a reference manual, I think anyone can benefit from Dvoretsky's book. If you lose a knight endgame, you can pick it up and read the twelve pages that he dedicates to that ending without feeling pressure to work through the entire thing. Or maybe you're curious to learn more about fortresses or how a bishop fights against pawns. Consider this brief insight into knight endgames (which is a bit of highlighted text surrounded on both sides by lots of detailed analysis):

Botvinnik's Formula. "Knight endgames are pawn endgames": that is something Botvinnik once said. What he had in mind is that many of the laws of pawn endings apply equally to knight endings. The same high value is given, for instance, to the active position of the king or the outside passed pawn. Such techniques as the pawn breakthrough, shouldering, the various methods of playing for zugzwang, and so forth, are seen constantly, not just in pawn endgames, but also in knight endgames. And we shall be convinced of this after studying a few practical examples.

It is not a difficult paragraph to read and the highlighted text makes it easy to find such gems among the more advanced analysis, but it's the type of idea that can be useful in a general sense to someone who has just entered a knight endgame and is about to formulate a plan. It helps to focus attention on the most relevant themes, which is something that stronger players do more intuitively.

Working through the entire book would be a challenge, but on the whole I think its difficulty has been somewhat overblown. Although he doesn't elaborate on many basic themes, he does provide explanations for the fundamentals of the endgame, and those explanations are often concise and clear. The exercises are a different matter. Many of the exercises are elaborate studies designed to illustrate intricate features of a position and challenge strong players.

But even if the book is presented in a serious manner, and the content is difficult sometimes, that can be a good thing. If you are completely over your head, then you probably aren't learning effectively; but in my experience as an educator, students are often not challenging themselves enough, but sauntering through grade-level work without trying to find their own personal limits and pushing past them. If you try reading a section and feel completely lost, then maybe it's not the right time; on the other hand, if it seems easier than you expected, then maybe you've discovered that you haven't been pushing yourself enough. As Hunter Thompson explained a limit: "the only people who know where it really is are the ones who have gone over."

I think it's also important to recognize that many people study chess for pure joy and the love of chess culture and history, rather than rating gain. If you enjoy the beauty of endgames, or love chess history and culture, or simply enjoy books, then you shouldn't let anyone discourage you from enjoying one of the masters of chess literature.