Pandolfini's Endgame Course: Basic Endgame Concepts Explained by America's Leading Chess Teacher (Fireside Chess Library)

When I first looked through this book, the diagrams looked so simple with so few pieces on the board. I thought it must be easy, and I quickly came up with my solutions without checking his on the same page. After spot checking 20 diagrams, I thought that maybe this books was for beginners. That's when I finally looked at his solutions.Each solution started out by pointing out a few problems and stating that if White moves the way I had planned, White loses the game. He then explains some simple principles and shows how they are needed to win that position. The positions come in grows of 3, in increasing difficulty and with added concepts building on the previous.This book seems to cover everything, from how to defeat a rook and king with a queen and king, to king and rook vs king and bishop and much more. There is no redundancy, other than that later examples build on previous ones. I had no idea there were so many important techniques in the end game, and that so many positions could definitely and easily be drawed or won with the techniques.Now when I look at endgame diagrams, I have a very good idea how to move.

as a beginner, book provided crucial end game positions for what seemed to be all combninations,providing move by move analysis and move by move diagrams, indispensable to any chess player ,certainly to this beginner. Actually, among the 7 chess books ive purchased from amazon, all of thisbook was the most useful one that has provides info for immediate use, not a wasted page, 6 stars!

The intent of the author to teach endgame theory in a digestible format to a broad range of players is to be highly commended. For that alone I would have given five+ stars. However, the number of typos and other errata is astonishing, and may be deserving of only one or two stars. If the publisher is going to keep printing and selling this 1988 book, a little effort must be taken to correct the errors.

The best book to use to learn common practical endgames from simple examples.The format makes it easy to use without a board.Pandolfini covers the essential endgame knowledge to reach chess expert level with the minimum effort. It's what you need to know for over-the-board play with no extra fluff.Useful for beginners up to at least expert level. I'm a USCF Expert but still find this book useful. I just bought a copy for my nephew (11 years old; about USCF 1000 rating) -- some of the book will be beyond him right now, but not all of it.There are some minor typos and errors. As for the typos, you can search the internet to locate one of the online errata lists for this book. I give it 5 stars despite that due to Pandolfini's great selection and presentation of material.

This is a popular and instructive introductory endgame book for the beginner-novice, covering all the endgame basics, in an easy to use format - one lesson per page. There are a few typos, which don't detract from the instructional value of the book - these are identified and corrected in the following errata sheet... glennwilson*dot*com/chess/books/pec_errata.html#end37

I ordered this item new in August 2013. The quality of the teaching material in this book appeared to be fine, however we returned our copy too early to read much of it due to the fact that the QUALITY OF THE PRINTING IN THE BOOK IS ABYSMAL! The publisher is REALLY letting the quality slide on this title!- The print on every page has ink speckles all around it, as if each page is a copy of a copy of a copy.- The chess diagrams on the first 60-70 pages are pixelated (crunchy/blurry/indistinct) almost beyond recognition for no apparent reason. It's as if they took a small digital image of the diagram from a previous printing and blew it up 200% in size. You can actually see the pixels in the image on the page! While the rest of the book's diagrams appear to be printed decently enough, the diagrams could really be a little larger for viewing.- Around the 10th puzzle or so, one of the diagrams on the page doesn't even match the description on page! And by that, I mean that the lesson on that page describes a Queen endgame on the board, and the diagram has no Queen, but a Rook and Knight instead. In fact, that particular diagram has the appearance of one diagram photocopied over another diagram behind it. You can actually see additional board coordinates sticking out from beneath the diagram. It's very shoddy looking.As for the content, my son seemed to enjoy the book for the day or so that we kept it. We enjoy many of Pandolfini's other titles. Of course, Amazon was easy to return the book to. I contacted the publisher Simon & Schuster and let them know of these issues. The agent was friendly, but didn't seem that concerned. The publisher is going to send me another copy free of charge.If you order this book, please be aware that you may get a horribly printed (though new) copy. I hope the publisher corrects this for future printings.

I read the first chapter, and it was excellent. Better than Tarrasch's. He gives you a diagram, a short explanation, and both ways to checkmate, with all the moves.

The print quality is absolute garbage, and I found multiple mistaken diagrams when compared to online corrections. Some of these mistakes make problems unsolvable.