Dvoretsky's endgame manual or 100 endgames you must know

@Sarg0n if endgames aren't coming up in your OTB games, that indicates you are probably passing on favorable trades and missing some wins where the path to the point must go through the endgame. It is often critical in spots where you grab some material like a pawn, give up the initiative, but defend by simplifying to a won ending. It's also critical when knight vs bishop imbalances exist where the ending favors you, or where a trade can ruin your opponents pawn structure but you can only exploit it properly in an ending. There is a good book by Joel Benjamin called Liquidation on the Chessboard that talks about how to recognize and evaluate these opportunities.

100 endgames is more accessible imo. It also depends on how serious you are about improvement.Age is a factor as in general kids don’t have the patience to read dense books

@PushyPush is a chesscourse on chessable or somewhere else available for this Liquidation thing? I'm interested in that, but I can't buy a book rn.

@Tae7 I'll write you private messages.

@PushyPush your username tells me that you may already be an endgame expert and should focus on the middlegame instead xD but idk just what came to my mind

@PushyPush Interesting article! Thanks for sharing. I’ve also got 100 EGYMK on chessable but haven’t yet made a start on it.
I completely agree with you about bullet/blitz and I should definitely play less bullet though it is rather addictive ;). I’ve recently started playing more classical games and it has made me realise the importance of studying endgames as I’ve lost quite a few games due to poor endgame knowledge...

@Yuhanwan ’Kids don’t have the patience to read dense books’- Lol, thats not a concern for me. I like reading :)

@xPhilosophusx Thnx!

In correspondence, endgames are even more important, basically because the edges you try to exploit are often smaller.

A few years ago I played in a class tournament, OTB. I was a class B player 1750-ish at the time (I'm class A now), so I was quite surprised in the first round to face a first grade student named Rithik. He was playing up a little, but not a lot. He was the winner of the national elementary grade championship or some such. It was a hard fought game, came down to an ending where I had B+N and pawns vs his N+N and one less pawn.

He made a mistake that let me fork his knight with my bishop and win it for two pawns. One of my remaining pawns was a rook pawn of the opposite color of my bishop and he was able to force the trade of my other pawn. He would have a KBP vs K draw if he could force the the knight trade, but no kid knows this. Except this one. He tried clever ways to force it twice. I had to work very hard, but finally got his knight separated from his king. Then he was trying hard to find a tactic to sac his knight for my pawn to make me play KBN vs K (which I was damn sure ready to do!) but I avoided all of it and finally won his knight and held the pawn.

Many club players have no idea that KBP vs K is drawn for a rook pawn that queens on square the bishop can't reach. They would've drawn a first grader.

100 endgames is better! Dvoretsky’s endgame manual is humongous.

Carlsen endorses "Fundamental Chess Endings" by Karsten Müller
Kasparov recommends "Dvoretzky's Endgame Manual" for professionals and amateurs alike

These books do not have to be read as a novels. Saying that this one can be read within 10 days or this one within 2 years does not mean anything.
Pick up the right chapter according to your weakness.
Unless your life is devoted to chess, it seems that de la Villa is a good book.

I just want to give you guys an example on why I think de la Villa did not make a good job in his book and why I think Dvoretsky is probably the much better choice, although I haven't read Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual.
This study shows Endgame 21 (Rook vs. Pawn) from 100 Endgames You Must Know, specifically the first of two positions. The second is not of much interest, I only show the first one. The first chapter of the (very small) study shows what de la Villa gives us. He only shows a subpar defense by the weaker side, how we would win against it and what not to do on move 1 (potential blunder). He does not show the best defense by the weaker side, which would make our task quite a bit trickier.
Personally I would expect this stuff to be covered in a book on theoretical endgames. That's one reason I don't like this book. To give you just one additional: Has anybody of you had a look at how de la Villa explains the B+N ending? It's the most horrendous explanation I have ever seen on it. He tells us he wants to demonstrate the w-manoeuvre, but he stops once he has drawn a "v" and just switches the technique without ever having shown properly how the right technique works. lichess.org/study/OVG4rCs7 It is shown in this study of mine in chapter 4. Chapers 1,2,3 give examples of how the youtuber Stjepan from Hanging Pawns (I improved the example), GM Akobian and GM Huschenbeth approach and teach the very same method, but the correct way.
I can only imagine Dvoretsky did a better job. Just to highlight my point: I took a special interest in the B+N ending a while ago, so I created this study. The other study I created maybe two weeks ago. I had thought to myself: How about trying de la Villa again, after all it's the only book on theoretical endings I possess. I wanted to focus on Rook endings first, and ending 21 was the first that came up. It's not me searching desperately for flaws, those flaws are just there. I am sure if I would go through the whole book with a critical view, creating my own (normally private) studies I would find a lot of such cases where de la Villa did a poor job.