Secrets of Pawn Endings

Rating:
Summary: Perfection
Review: I'm a class C player interested in seriously improving my game. My first endgame book was by Yasser Seirawan, Winning Chess Endings. I didn't really get enough out of the book's section on pawn endings. Due to this I decided to purchase this boook and I was amazed at what I could learn and how quickly. I believe this is the easiest to understand book on any aspect of chess theory I have ever read.

To get the most out of this book I highly recommend playing through the positions against a strong chess engine (Fritz, for example). Evaluate the test positions in your head and if you get any incorrect play through the positions against the engine.

I rarely reach endgames in my play, but I'm sure that I am able to correctly evaluate if I should trade off into an ending or not when I am faced with the choice.

Rating:
Summary: Secrets of Good Books
Review: Ok, endgame books are mostly raw facts and calculation. Accuracy is more important than writing ability. If you purchased this book, there is no doubt what you expected to take from it.

When I found the first typo on the first page of chapter one I thought I made a bad purchase. I don't care about excuses...poor editing, hard to translate from German, or anything else.

As I continued to read I found the book to be better than I had expected. Once I got used to the codes and symbols, the book was very enjoyable. The exercises were outstanding. They hammered home the critical ideas without wasting your time on exercises that would never occur in an actual game. And yes the book was very accurate. I learned a few new ways to quickly evaluate complex positions. The order of the exercises was perfect. Each exercise built on the previous exercises as they flowed smoothly through the book. You can not spend too much time with a book like this.

After living and playing in Germany for the past two years I am amazed at the strength of German players and their passion for the game. They are absolutely crazy about chess. I find chess everywhere I go in this country. These two authors are a direct reflection of chess in Germany today. I will look for more of their books.

Rating:
Summary: Secrets of Good Books
Review: Ok, endgame books are mostly raw facts and calculation. Accuracy is more important than writing ability. If you purchased this book, there is no doubt what you expected to take from it.
When I found the first typo on the first page of chapter one I thought I made a bad purchase. I don't care about excuses...poor editing, hard to translate from German, or anything else.
As I continued to read I found the book to be better than I had expected. Once I got used to the codes and symbols, the book was very enjoyable. The exercises were outstanding. They hammered home the critical ideas without wasting your time on exercises that would never occur in an actual game. And yes the book was very accurate. I learned a few new ways to quickly evaluate complex positions. The order of the exercises was perfect. Each exercise built on the previous exercises as they flowed smoothly through the book. You can not spend too much time with a book like this.
After living and playing in Germany for the past two years I am amazed at the strength of German players and their passion for the game. They are absolutely crazy about chess. I find chess everywhere I go in this country. These two authors are a direct reflection of chess in Germany today. I will look for more of their books. , SFC Enochs, US Army

Rating:
Summary: Corr. Squares...
Review: Pretty readable. Bathroom book. Slow enough to glance at a chapter a week- in the tub. The book should help any C,B,A players get much stronger quicker...wish there were more detailed endings with their correpsonding opening structures though- ie. sicilian, french etc.

Rating:
Summary: Tour de Force
Review: This is a comprehensive and eminently readable treatise on pawn endings. The organisation is superb. Chapters titled 'Race of the Passed Pawns' 'Unique features of the Rook's Pawn', 'Fortresses' 'Breakthrough', 'Fight for Tempi and Manouevre', 'Corresponding Squares', 'Thinking Methods to Find the Right Move' (among others) are to be found. These chapter titles themselves attest to the excellence of this treatise. I use the word 'treatise' deliberately; the coverage is comprehensive. The work is a piece of scholarship written with Teutonic thoroughness and accuracy.

This is not to say that there are not other good pawn ending books around. The Averbakh book is quite good, as is the one by Hajenius and van Riemsdijk (The Final Countdown). The book by Fishbein is not a bad effort. But the title being reviewed here beats 'em all. I'd give the Averbakh book 4 stars and the other two 3 stars each. 'Secrets of Pawn Endings' deserves 5.

If you have already studied a basic endgame book and wish to embark on a careful study of pawn endings, this is the book for you

Rating:
Summary: A Comprehensive Pawn-Ending Book
Review: This is the only books I found that covers all the basic concepts of pawn endings that are taken for granted in more advanced books. For example, if you've read books like My System, you're probably familiar with pawn breakthroughs. This book shows you how to engineer them.

Secrets of Pawn Endings is not an easy read. But if you want to take your endgame to the next level, you need this book.

Rating:
Summary: Your Second Endgame Book
Review: Unfortunately, explanations of pawn endings tend to be more mystifying than helpful to players of average talent (like me). Even single pawn endgames can seem so puzzling. However, with a little work even average players can understand this book. I suspect it would be helpful to unusually talented and experienced players as well.

I feel that for most player's purposes this book is a little better than Averbach's book, but it's most fun to have them both and compare their explanations. Averbach's book spends far more time on the theory of corresponding squares, while this book is more practical. In short, don't despair if you can't find Averbach's book; this one is very good.

If you've read a basic introduction to the endgame, and want to go deeper, this is the next step. All other endgames constantly threaten to reduce to pawn endgames, so these are fundamental concepts. As it says on the back cover, "Without an understanding of [pawn endings] it is impossible to master more complicated endings." That is absolutely true.

Many players will feel that pawn endgames are boring, but in reality they can be very beautiful. If you learn to enjoy them, then your enjoyment of the entire game of chess will increase.