About Endgames

The content of this book
The content of this book I intend to devote this book to the second phase, that is, the study of the 'exact endings', as I consider it the most neglected (perhaps because it is the least exciting) area. However, I am aware of the difficulties of this task. I have tried to summarise the most useful positions among the numerous endings, and to reduce them to a figure and volume that could be handled by a practical player as well as trainers or coaches. The final result was the symbolic number 1 0 0. Perhaps some endings deserved to appear in this book but were left out; perhaps some are included in the book but should not appear. In any case, everyone may have his opinion, but this has been my choice. As stated in the title, my intention was to include only 'the endings we all should know'. The reader may well wonder: which ones? The answer may be controversial, but these were the criteria used, in order of importance: 1) To be frequently encountered in practice. 2) To be capable of clear analysis (and therefore, easier to remember). 3) To contain ideas that can be applied to similar, or even more complex, positions. Thus this book was not intended as an encyclopedia, dealing with all known endings and used as a reference book, but as a practical tool which allows the reader to improve his knowledge of the theoretical endgames most likely to arise in an actual game. When we play a simple ending, our train of thought leads us to reduce it to a familiar position. Until we have achieved this, we will have doubts. My aim when selecting positions for this book was to include those familiar positions we easily and frequently reach, so that they can guide our train of thought when playing. With a good command of these positions, we will play with more confidence, and mistakes will be less likely to occur. Taking all this into account, I have left out the basic checkmates (I assume they are known) and other endings such as Queen + Pawn vs. Queen and Knight + Pawn vs. Knight. The reason is that tactics play a more important role than ideas, and also that these endings are not so frequently encountered, so their study is not very useful. On the contrary, I have emphasised rook endings, as well as opposite-coloured bishop endings; the former are the most frequent, the latter are the clearest. In some cases, just very few, I have included positions almost impossible to learn by heart and whose analysis is complex. The reason was that, either I considered those endings important, or they are relevant from a practical point of view, or they influence the understanding of other endings. These cases are labelled in each chapter as especially difficult, and they must be studied in a different way. Once the selection was complete, I tried to explain the endings in a clear fashion. I intended the explanations to be easy to learn and remember for a practical player, and useful for a trainer in his lessons. How did I plan to do this? I will give a more detailed explanation in the next section.