100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player

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The analysis section contains the main body of work. The reader is not expected to memorize everything by heart; in fact, that is probably not a productive exercise. When going through a variation, it is best to stop at a point you think is appropriate, and that should always be the point at which you find that you have fully understood the position.

comparing '100 Endgames' with John Nunn's 'Understanding Endgames') "Though Nunn's comments are clear and to the point, I found De la Villa's discussions easier to digest." A clear exposition of the most important endgames, with exercises to test your knowledge.” - British Chess MagazineEndgames You Must Know is written by GM Jesus De La Villa. This book is originally published by New in Chess which Play Magnus Group owns. This book becomes one of the bestselling chess endgame books within significantly less time. Most of the patterns Jesus de la Villa presents in this new book are from the phase of the game just before a theoretical endgame turns up. Knowing these practical endgame fundamentals will enable you to fully reap the benefits of what you learned in De la Villa’s widely acclaimed classic 100 Endgames You Must Know. The fact that players think in patterns has an important side-effect: their endgame errors tend to repeat themselves. That’s why De la Villa has not just included examples from games of elite GM’s but also of amateurs. Errors are always instructive and working with this book will seriously reduce the number of typical mistakes you are prone to make. The many practical exercises that De la Villa has selected will help you improve and retain what you have learned.

The exercises in each chapter are organized in increasing level or difficulty making this book suitable for the average player to players at master level. In the chapter with Solutions a reference to the relevant chapter in 100 Endgames You Must Know has been included. This makes it easy to restudy the theory again if you have difficulty with solving these practical exercises. The next stage consisted of my own engine analysis, using the Chessbase Engine Cloud to examine critical but unexplored positions. Finally, I engage as critically as possible with the existing literature, as I hope others will do with my work in the future. The best place to start your tactics training is in the endgame! Chess is 99% tactics – and if you want to win more games, nothing works better than training tactics. Win a piece or find a mate. That will get you results. This book aims to provide a complete overview of a 1.d4 repertoire against five main openings (King’s Indian Defense, Grünfeld Defense, Slav Defense, Benoni Defense, and Catalan systems after 1.d4 d5), offering analysis of classical games and typical tactical motifs to provide an in-depth understanding of the associated middlegames. A concluding chapter explores typical endgames that are likely to arise from 1.d4. There’s not much to say about it, .you just have to buy it and read it! De la Villa does a truly wonderful job of explaining useful endgames in a calm and measured manner that is clear enough for any strength of player to understand while still being interesting for stronger players. If you’ve never read an endgame book before, this is the one you should start with."In this book, the author started with Pawn Endgames and ended with a difficult test. The following are the chapters covered in the book. There’s not much to say about it – you just have to buy it and read it! De la Villa does a truly wonderful job of explaining useful endgames in a calm and measured manner that is clear enough for any strength of player to understand while still being interesting for stronger players. If you’ve never read an endgame book before, this is the one you should start with.” - GM Matthew Sadler Most club players consider studying the endgame to be boring and have a clear weakness in their endgame play relative to their openings and middlegames. This increases the importance of endgame study because it is easier to increase the discrepancy between you and your peers by studying the endgame than by studying any other area of the game. At the beginning of every chapter is an overview of the opening, which serves to give the reader some basic foundations and highlights the general concepts, extracted from the analysis section. If the reader is in need of a brief summary of a particular opening, I suggest you focus on the overviews. I hope that this example convinced you that this endgame book is about much more than endgame technique. It learns you to calculate a variation tree and consider opponents moves. It will develop your visualization skills and give you a better feeling for the pieces and their coordination.

My favorite endgame book, very clear and concise. If you only read one endgame book it should be this one." - GM Niclas HuschenbethGM and former world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk stated that she really enjoyed the book and made flash cards for each of the 100 positions with on one side the diagram and on the other side the solution. She would quiz herself until she new all the 100 endgames by heart. Clearly, this was before Chessable was available!