I am looking for an endgame-strategy book. I say strategy to distinguish this from technical endgame books like "100 endgames you must know", "Silmans complete endgame course " and so on.
Thus far I found 3 books, which fit that category:
- Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky
- Secrets of Chess Endgame Strategy by Lars Bo
- Mastering Endgame Strategy by Hellsten
Can you recommend any over the other? Or maybe a different book?
I just want to buy one.
I recommend you a book wich is not about endgames, but general chess understanding, look at the book How to study chess by your own by GM Davorin Kuljasevic, great book for people like us who dont have a chess coach
Shereshevsky is the classic which everyone has recommended for years. I've heard Hellsten's books are certainly not intended to be easy reading; I don't have the book but I would guess that if you don't know at least some technical endings, then properly reading Hellsten would require you to be prepared to figure them out for yourself or find out about them by some other means.
I've never heard of Bo's book.
I only have the first of the 3 and it's very good. You may find that you stall out working thru it because you've seen many of the examples before.
Reinfeld, oddly, has a semi- advanced book on endgame strategy 'Reinfeld on the endgame in chess' that I'm going thru now.
So far my favorites along these lines are Baburin's book on IQP [it includes lots of detail about IQP endgames with various piece combinations] and Chernev's book on Capa's greatest endgames.
"I say strategy to distinguish this from technical endgame books like "100 endgames you must know""
Not sure I'd make that distinction.
I really liked the Lars Bo Hansen book and a similar book called Endgame Play by Chris Ward, which is even shorter, but actually has more explanatory prose per move which I really like. Either of these would be a good introduction, but they're both hard to find. Neither of them has exercises.
I've been thinking about reading Hellsten's book myself and also How to Play Chess Endgames by Muller and Pajeken. Just looking at the tables of contents, Hellsten's book is organized by piece, like "Rook Themes" and "Pawn Themes", while the Muller and Pajeken book is more conceptual with topics like "Weaknesses" and "Prophylaxis". They both have exercises and solutions. If you're looking to just buy one book, then I would probably choose one of these, because they're longer and have exercises. I'd probably choose the Muller book personally. On the other hand, I can't say for sure how much more advanced the prose is compared to the Hansen and Ward books, so it's possible that it would really be worthwhile to get one of those first and one of these afterward.
I've read Shereshevsky's book and really liked it. It's a classic if you're interested in chess history like me. It doesn't have exercises. But I think the Hellsten or Muller book would probably be better choices if you just want to buy one. In terms of organization, it's more like the Muller book. In fact the Muller book seems to be an updated version of Shereshevsky plus exercises.
"I am looking for an endgame-strategy book. I say strategy to distinguish this from technical endgame books like "100 endgames you must know", "Silmans complete endgame course " and so on."
Technical endgame books like "100 endgames you must know", "Silmans complete endgame course " are simply better.
It's ok if you buy more than one. The more chess books you have on your shelves, the smarter you look to visitors. There are diminishing returns after the 3rd or so book though, so the best strategy is to disperse them onto many shelves throughout the house.
@DrHack said in #8:
> It's ok if you buy more than one. The more chess books you have on your shelves, the smarter you look to visitors. There are diminishing returns after the 3rd or so book though, so the best strategy is to disperse them onto many shelves throughout the house.
Bold to assume that a guy who own more then 3 chess books has some visitors:D
Although it's not just about endings, JR Capablanca's Chess Fundamentals is good on the subject. Although he was world champion a long time ago, you can get his books in algebraic (modern) as well as descriptive notation.
