Easy Endgame Strategies

by Bill Robertie

Expert advice in easy to read charts and explanations shows you how to force winning positions into checkmates in the endgame and even how to turn drawn or lost positions into victories This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1580421105
• ISBN13: 9781580421102
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Cardoza Publishing
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Very Good First Book on Endgames

This is a breezy, chatty book in Robertie's own unique style, the best feature of which is his positive attitude encouraging you to get out there and WIN! It's a good "first" book, written at an assume-nothing level, not trying or pretending to be complete, deliberately leaving out more advanced and esoteric material. It starts with the basic checkmates (omitting the relatively rare and quite difficult king+knight+bishop vs. king), and goes on to present a good selection of important endings. The descriptions make for easy reading and the discussions and play are easy to follow. One omission that I think is unfortunate, and lowers my rating of the book a bit, is material on having an advantage of the exchange, such as rook+pawns vs bishop+pawns or knight+pawns. These endings are common and need to be studied even by endgame debutantes. (An alternative "first" endgame book, if you don't mind descriptive notation, is Horowitz "How to Win in the Chess Endings," which is even more chatty and a bit more complete, though still lacking a few things.) Like most Cardoza books, sadly, proofing was not a priority and there are many obvious typos. But still all in all, four stars, and, with used prices in the sub-$5 range, you can hardly go wrong. Study this book, follow up with Pandolfini's Endgame Course, and then much later on, go into the big stuff such as Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual.

Mating with knights???

I haven't got this book. Still, five stars because I've read the review of someone who apparently did buy it and "only" gave it four stars, complaining about the fact that there isn't enough explanation about how to mate with two knights. Just wanted to inform this person that there is no way to mate your opponent with only two knights, unless he/she completely messes up him/herself. That's all :-)

Fast easy and cheap

This book combines Robertie's 2 earlier Endgame Strategies books (one on Rooks and Queens, and the other one on Minor Pieces). So you get 2 short books for the price of one at a price lower than most beginner/intermediate endgame books- in fact it is more than the total pages of the 2 previous books put together so is even better value with more content. It is a "pageturner" and a quick read but that's not necessarily a bad thing for those who want beginner/intermediate strategies with a minimum of fuss. And with around 300 pages there is quite some meat despite it being a quick and easy read. If you are an advanced player it's probably not for you as it doesn't go into more complex stategies. For example the more difficult checkmates using knights (which are the rarest anyway) are very briefly glossed over and not adequately explained. This is probably because Robertie was a SPEED chess champion and probably didn't have much time in his career games to use longer knight checkmates. However this itself is also probably the reason why the book is so good at simply explaining fast easy strategies. If you want to get a simple handle on how to checkmate effectively then this "fast food" book will get you there quickly with a minimum of fuss. Lots of board diagrams and plain English explanations make it easier to follow straight from the book than more advanced books which assume you can hold in your head multiple moves with fewer board diagrams. Even better place the piece moves from Robertie's book using the Chessmaster program and follow every single move. It doesn't get 5 stars because of a few too many typos and the fact that it glosses over the knight checkmates. But overall great value for the beginner to intermediate player.