Books : Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master

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by: Jeremy Silman

: Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 794.124
EAN: 9781890085100
ISBN: 1890085103
Label: Siles Press
Manufacturer: Siles Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 530
Publication Date: January 31, 2007
Publisher: Siles Press
Sales Rank: 9927
Studio: Siles Press



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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
For over 100 years, the world's leading chess players and teachers have told their students to study the endgame. Now, for the first time, a revolutionary, richly instructive endgame book has been designed for players of all levels. This is the one and only endgame book you'll need as you move up the ladder from beginner to tournament player and master. Designed to 'speak' to a player in a very personal way, Silman's book teaches the student everything he or she needs to know at his or her current rating level, and builds on that knowledge for each subsequent phase of the player's development. Starting at the beginner's level, all basic mates are clearly and painstakingly explained. After that, the critical building blocks that form the endgame foundation for all tournament hopefuls and experienced tournament competitors are explored in detail. Finally, advanced endgame secrets, based on concepts rather than memorization, are presented in a way that makes them easy to master.The basic keys to a well-rounded endgame education - Opposition, the Lucena and Philidor Positions, Cat and Mouse, Trebuchet, Fox in the Chicken Coup, Triangulation, Building a Box, Square of a Pawn, Outflanking, the Principle of Two Weaknesses - are vital. But equally important is creating a love of the endgame, which is addressed at the end of the book with a look at chess tactics, minor piece domination, and a discussion of the five greatest endgame players of all time - all things that every fan of chess at every level can enjoy. If you have found the endgame to be a mystery, if you have found that your confidence plummets once you reach an endgame, if you have searched for an instructive endgame book that will turn your weakest link - your endgame - into your personal field of power, your search is over. The book is the key to a world of essential ideas, startling beauty, and stunning creativity.



Customer Reviews
Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Just a little too casual
I love the idea of progressive introduction of material, in the endgame and anywhere else, and adopting rating ranges as indicators is brilliant (like all simple ideas we didn't think of). I enjoyed the book, learned a great deal, and I think it is correctly well regarded and worth every penny many times over.

Why drop a point from a Book of the Year then? What is the most important single position in endgames? Surely most people would say Lucena, since almost all your rook and pawn endgame technique revolves around getting or avoiding the position. But the presentation of the actual Lucena position in the book is inadequate. Someone relying on this treatment alone could easily get foiled in time trouble by one of the swindles. I think Silman should have done a more thorough presentation of this one position at least. Emms' Survival Guide to Rook Endings covers Lucena in 3/4 page (p17) including a diagram! Silman took 5 pages and doesn't mention a single swindle. That's it - my only criticism, but you might consider topping up this fine book with Emms' little gem for completeness. And don't resign a Lucena without at least trying a swindle - you're lost, but go down swinging!


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - A Very Good Approach to Endgames
I like Silman's approach of teaching concepts based on your rating. This is much more helpful than the usual approach in the a book like Reuben Fine (Basic Chess Endings) where the book is organized by the type of endings. You may still want to have the Fine book, but I would highly recommend this book first.


Rating: 3 out of 5 stars - Good Book - missing some key points
I'm certain many will not agree with me, but here goes:

This book is good, not great. Karsten Muller, for example, does an explanation of key squares for the King to occupy to ensure promotion that is both much shorter and actually ~much~ more complete and useful OTB. Where Silman indicates be ahead of the P with the oposition to win, Muller shows you what squares win, and they are not just the one in front of the pawn. Maybe Silman includes diagonals as "in front" but that is ambiguous and clarified nowhere. Moreover, the Dvoretsky / Muller key square concept works whether you have the move or not.

Another important item is that many times Silman shows a line and tells you a move in that line, not pointing out that this is the ONLY move that does not throw away the advantage - Where the Nunn convention gives an exclam to indicate such, we see nothing here. A sentence or two would be usefull to say what is the only move and why that is the case. There is plenty of space in this large book for that, and some places where things are verbosely analyzed out to the end would have been good to trade for these key points. Run the positions through Fritz and you will see this, or anything else that implements the tablebases.

Silman has an easy-to-read style and does teach well, so please, I am not slamming the book overall with these gripes. Just no way it can earn 5 stars with some incompleteness mixed with some unnecessary repetition and verbosity.

It is a good book, but needs to be supplemented with other material, which seems odd given its large physical size.

The sheer amount of material makes it well worth the cover price.

Would I buy it again, yes, certainly.

Would I recommend it, yes certainly, and with the notes above.

Best to all...


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Beginners and intermediates will enjoy it
A great book, haughtily written. I found the progression of the book particularly useful--the right problems for the student's situation.


Rating: 4 out of 5 stars - Good, but not "Complete," and more emphasis on "Beginner" than "Master"
I'm a 1900+ USCF Player. I've had this book for awhile and have finally decided to review it. To begin with, I'll say that I feel this book tries to "dumb-down" too many things, and that turned me off initially. I don't love super-complex stuff either--I have DVORETSKY'S ENDGAME MANUAL but it's a bit too "heavy" for my liking.

SILMAN'S COMPLETE ENDGAME COURSE is a GOOD book. Why it's so huge I don't know, considering that for its size it doesn't cover that much...but that's a different issue.

Silman comes up with seemingly a good idea of separating endgame knowledge into rating level. I basically agree with his choice of material in Part One (Unrated-999), Part Two (1000-1199), and Part Three (1200-1399). He presents this material very well, and I could recommend those parts to my students without reservation.

In the future parts I tend to disagree with the author's choice of what chapter certain topics are located in, but Silman anticipates this in his Preface. Taking the book as a whole, I believe that the most important stuff IS covered, somewhere. My advice for, say, a 1600 player, would be to go through everyhing (with the possible exception of the "Master" chapter) in order to ensure that 1600 player gets what they should get out of the book.

A big problem I have with this book is that once the author reaches Class C and Class B there should be, in my opinion, more examples with "many pawns." I just don't think Silman provides enough "complex" examples. He does the basics extremely well, but I wouldn't dare tell anyone 1800-2200 "this book is all you need for the endgame." Maybe it's true, but I doubt it.

This has made me want to do a Listmania! of endgame materials to study, but a couple of the materials I'd recommend are not on Amazon!

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Recommendations for those beyond Part Three of Silman's book:

THEORY AND PRACTICE OF CHESS ENDINGS by Convekta
-This CD is the best-kept secret EVER on endgame learning. Everybody needs to have this. Grandmasters would do well to review parts of it. The material was created by GM Alexander Panchenko who ran a chess school in the Soviet Union in the '80s that produced over 30 GMs/WGMs. I have never learned so much about the endgame (in two weeks!) as I did with this CD. The CD teaches you how to play EVERY kind of endgame imaginable. All of the PLANS are explained. Not only that, it contains 50+ brilliant examples of "Multi-piece Endings." It's a travesty more chessplayers don't know about this work.

A CHESS LIBRARY FOR PRACTICAL PLAYERS: THE ENDGAME by GM Marat Makarov
-Another work not on Amazon, sadly. You'll have to get it from Chess-Stars (the little-known Bulgarian publishing company that produces the highest quality of chess books for SERIOUS players). Makarov doesn't cover the basic mates, but everything after that, and quite a number of advanced topics! The material is presented briefly, but the emphasis is on PRACTICAL positions/techniques/setting problems for the opponent. A motivated 1200 player could begin working with this book, and the examples are so well-chosen a 2300 could benefit.

ESSENTIAL CHESS ENDINGS by GM James Howell
-Check out my review on Amazon.

ENDGAME STRATEGY by IM Mikhail Shereshevsky
-I will review this on Amazon shortly.

ENDGAME VIRTUOSO by GM Vasily Smyslov
-Check out my review on Amazon.

CHESS SCHOOL 4: THE MANUAL OF CHESS ENDINGS by GM Sarhan Guliev
-I will review this on Amazon shortly.

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