Rating: 
Summary: A remarkable achievement
Review: I've read several endgame books, but none have the outstanding clarity and wit of this entertaining volume. Alburt starts with fundamental concepts of king and pawn endgames (opposition, triangulation, zugzwang, etc) and proceeds to more complex endgame situations.One gets the feeling this will become a classic endgame text. After reading the section on rook and pawn endgames I was in a game with a complex endgame where all the relevant principles applied. The clarity of presentation meant that it was easy to recall under combat conditions!
Rating: 
Summary: Good enough
Review: Let's get one thing straght about this series by Alburt et al: it's not stellar in any way and certainly contains no scintillating discovery of a new method. There is one thing which does shine through these books: the hype is unsurpassed! The authors cannot contain themselves long enough in the pages before splashing someone's biography complete with their availability for lessons, their rates, their 'phone numbers and what they had for dinner last night! (just keeeedink!;-). People, I already BOUGHT the book, I don't require commercials while reading it. This was a disconcerting aspect of reading it. On the other hand, it does contain the necessary material for the student to play the endgame at a reasonably high level of understanding. The layout is good and color is used to good effect to highlight important points. It would have received a fourth start but I don't think it's worth the price they're asking. A better book at a better price for beginners would be Silman's Endgame book, check it out.
Rating:
Summary: Good enough
Review: Let's get one thing straght about this series by Alburt et al: it's not stellar in any way and certainly contains no scintillating discovery of a new method. There is one thing which does shine through these books: the hype is unsurpassed! The authors cannot contain themselves long enough in the pages before splashing someone's biography complete with their availability for lessons, their rates, their 'phone numbers and what they had for dinner last night! (just keeeedink!;-). People, I already BOUGHT the book, I don't require commercials while reading it. This was a disconcerting aspect of reading it. On the other hand, it does contain the necessary material for the student to play the endgame at a reasonably high level of understanding. The layout is good and color is used to good effect to highlight important points. It would have received a fourth start but I don't think it's worth the price they're asking. A better book at a better price for beginners would be Silman's Endgame book, check it out.
Rating:
Summary: Just Average
Review: This book has been hyped as revealing the great endgame secrets of The Soviet School of Chess. That's silly. It is a beginner's book with plenty of solid information that is readily available in many other books. It duplicates many of the ideas in Averbakh's CHESS ENDINGS: ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE but has a slightly broader scope.
This book is part of a series that is supposed to be eminently readable because of side notes, generous pagination, and many diagrams. It is supposed to have an appearance similar to a high school textbook intended for kids who would rather be watching television. It has pictures and marginal blurbs intended to recover the attention of the bored reader. This may be a good idea in principle but it is poorly executed and the extras actually hinder rather than help us comprehend the content. All the skipping around is distracting.
There is no doubt that the book's content is quite good and necessary for a tournament chessplayer, but it is also not enough. It may serve as a foundation for a better book, such as Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. Many tournament chessplayers are shaky on their endgame fundamentals, and this will give you a solid grounding if you patiently go through it and review it periodically to refresh your memory. But don't stop there. Go on to Dvoretsky's endgame manual to get a course that has benefitted many GMs and is well within the reach of any intermediate player.
I wouldn't say this is a great book, but it's not bad, either. It's just average.
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