There is a glowing review here:  http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/

DrKibzwang wrote on 09/20/07 at 03:10:07:

Very helpful mini-review.  I am 1800 and i share your opinions.

Finaly, I made my choice 

And the winner is...  Van Perlo's (I've just bought it)

Flear's book seems good, although there is not so much commentary, just only a few critical moves are being looked upon and most of the game is given without anything else (I had to precise that the opening and middle-game moves are not given, each example start from an ending position).

I share DrKibzwang's point of view: it seems that the material in this book has been generated from chessbase endgame key (but this also true for Van Perlo).

All in all, a fat good book, but I don't know why I preferred Van Perlo's one, probably because of all the sound critics I've read about it.

bulgroz wrote on 09/20/07 at 09:35:10:


Buy both?

I recently leafed through this book, and so these comments aren't based on any careful reading.

The book should really be called an Encyclopedia of Nuckies, but I suppose Everyman wouldn't stand for that. (Nuckies is Flear's recommended pronunciation of NQEs -- "not quite endings", or endings with two pieces each.) Flear gives statistics on the percentage of games in which different kinds of NQEs appear. For example, double bishop endings seem about as necessary to master as Silman claims the B&N vs K mate is, whereas double rook endings are surprisingly common. No surprise: R+minor piece combinations are the most common. That information alone makes it a valuable resource in learning and practicing endgames -- in where to put your effort.

In  the introduction, Flear remarks that the rules on time controls now mean that virtually all endgames are played out in time trouble and that a mastery of not just the basic theoretical endgames is necessary but also the commonest two-piece NQEs.

There seems to be a lot of analysis of many recent NQEs, all categorized by material balance (and therefore nothing like Shereshevsky's books on endgame strategy). My growing suspicion, as I leafed through this material, was that this is the kind of encyclopedic classification that could easily be generated from Chessbase. Anybody could have generated the games for themselves from a good database, so the quality of the book all comes down to the instructional quality of the annotations and linking texts. The annotations seem thorough (but what do I know?) But there didn't seem to be much in the way of instructional linking text. Paradoxically, the length of the book (500+ pages) suggests that more work went into generating and analyzing the examples and less on making sense of them. I suspect that this book will be a wonderful resource for coaches looking for training material. But an individual player, especially sub-2000, could easily get swamped. I'm not suggesting that this is a database dump. It seems to be a very exhaustive and thoughtfully produced book. It's just that I think you might find it hard to find material other than purely by material balance, and although it may be a good way to look up endings for reference, I'm not convinced that this is necessarily the best way to learn endgame strategy.

Another problem with the length of the book: length=thickness. The book doesn't handle well, unlike say FCE or Dvoretsky. The bookstore copy I saw already had a broken spine, and it couldn't have been on the shelf more than a couple of days.

But, hey, let's all go out and buy it. That's what we do.

My dream is that some day publishers will provide a CD with the book, and only charge five dollars more. I would be willing to pay the extra money.

bulgroz wrote on 09/14/07 at 11:53:48:



No. (I wish!)

bulgroz wrote on 09/14/07 at 08:46:42:


Of course the books have a lot in common! In this field there is evolution rather than revolution.

In 1985 Shereshevsky's "Endgame Strategy" was a pioneering work and it remains a great classic. But the science of chess, and chess teaching, moves on. Also we have seen the end of adjournments and the introduction of faster time limits. I am sure the new work will not disappoint, and I predict that it too is destined to become a classic.