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

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As you said, 7-men Lomonosov built since last edition, and probably 7-men tablebase revealed that some analyses wrong. 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. 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." I am a beginner (approximately 1400) seeking to improve my endgame technique. Which one of these books would you recommend as suitable for my strength and why? De la Villa's "100 Endgames you must know", though apparently a good book seems to have been plagued by an abundance of typos and mistakes as detailed in this blogpost.

The 100 Endgames You Must Know Workbook: Practical Exercises

Former Women’s World Chess Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk] said she had really enjoyed De la Villa’s 100 Endgames You Must Know and had made flashcards out of the 100 positions. One side of the card had the position, the solution was written out on the reverse, and she quizzed herself until she knew all 100.” - Elisabeth Vicary, USCF Online This book is often considered "the must read" book on endgames. It's good, but it's certainly not the best. For starters, it should be called "400 Technical Endgames You Should Be Aware Of".The beginning chapters were fantastic, but as the book progresses, the difficulty and impracticality of actually memorizing these endgames becomes a reality. At my level (1700 USCF), it's simply not practical to memorize all these technical endgames. Maybe at master level it might be, but definitely not at club level.

100 Endgames: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player

Jesus de la Vila debunks the myth that endgame theory is complex and he teaches you to steer the game into a position you are familiar with. The greatest strength of the book: breaking things down into well-worded chunks of easily digestible information."

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. De la Villa does the job quite well. He emphasizes the practical and prefers understanding to memorization." Chess is complicated. A beginner to the game has a lot of rules to learn before they attain competence. A typical Chess game has three major sections; the Opening, the Middlegame, and the Endgame. Given all of this, how do you decide what to focus on first? 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." Jesus de la Villa's book comes highly-recommended by a coach (a Russian IM) whom I approached about this question. It is refreshingly focused on making your study time as productive (in terms of decisive game results) as possible.