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Chessville
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Several months ago I reviewed Steve Giddins’ previous book, 50 Essential Chess Lessons, and thought it was one of the best books of the year. His latest effort is on the endgame, but before we get into my review proper I want to say a few words about the book’s layout. It is formatted like Steve’s 1998 book from Gambit, 101 Chess Opening Traps, in that each page contains one complete lesson. However, there are some big improvements. First, the pages are much larger, and now feature 4-5 diagrams per page rather than the 3 per page as in the 1998 book. Also, the diagrams themselves are larger and thus easier on the eyes. Additionally, the layout of the text, diagrams, and white space is much improved, making it a pleasure to go through the material. Finally, the cover of 101 Chess Endgame Tips features a striking red background which fades into darkness over a 3D chessboard. The king and pawn ending set-up on the board, with light reflecting off the pieces, has a simple beauty to it. Inside the book, each lesson or “Tip” has its own unique title such as, The Triumph of the Two Bishops, Fischer’s Classic, Don’t get in a Huff, and The Active Rook. My first comment is that no one is going to confuse these light tips on the endgame with say, Silman’s Complete Endgame Course. Whereas Jeremy’s book is a comprehensive endgame course that goes into great detail, a full meal if you will, Steve’s book is more a light snack or a “microwave lesson,” as my review title states. This comment is not meant as a criticism, rather I’m just pointing out that although both books are on the endgame, the depth with which they cover the topic is quite different. That said, one big advantage of Giddins' book is that it’s perfect for when you don’t have a lot of time to study. Like when you have 5-10 minutes to kill while waiting in line at the post office, sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s office, or any other place where you might be sitting for 5-10 minutes. ;) I should mention that while the back cover claims that “this is an ideal book to read without using a chess set,” I would say that this is only partially true. Some of the lessons only have a handful of moves between diagrams, and thus don’t require a chess board. However, others have over 10 pairs of moves between diagrams, and I don’t know about you, but 20 ply is a bit beyond my horizon! Still, it is worth having a go at them, even if you end up jumping to the next diagram and picking up the action from there. Giddins begins the book with a brief Introduction (which somewhat strangely is followed by the Symbols/Bibliography/Acknowledgement page!? More conventional/natural is to put the S/B/A page first, and then the intro, so that the intro leads right into the first chapter.) Within the Introduction, Giddins gives a short list of Important Endgame Principles. Here’s a summary:
Good advice! In fact, I would have liked to read more. Steve is a good writer and so I felt a bit cheated because I wanted a little more meat in the intro. The rest of the book’s Contents break down as follows:
To give you an idea of the book’s “one tip-per-page” layout, here is page 28, which is on The Principle of Two Weaknesses:
As you can see, everything is laid-out very nicely. In the diagram in the bottom right corner, GM Tony Miles concluded matters nicely with the alert 50 Bxg6!, sacrificing his bishop to create a second passed pawn. Black resigned since after 50…Bxg6 (50…hxg6 51 h7) 51 d6 Be8 52 g6 Black’s bishop cannot stop both pawns. If you enjoyed this lesson, the book contains 100 more! The Bottom Line While not in the same class as his fantastic previous book, 50 Essential Chess Lessons Giddins’ latest effort is nonetheless still well worth having. It’s perfect for when you don’t have a lot of time to study, but still want to work on improving your endgame. Indeed, if you just did one lesson per day, after a little more than three months you would have GREATLY increased your knowledge of how to play all sorts of endings. On a side note, I am currently reading Josh Waitzkin’s excellent new book, The Art of Learning (Free Press, 2007). In it he talks about how many years ago he and his first coach, Bruce Pandolfini, used to spend hours and hours going over all kinds of different endings, while most of his young competitors worked mainly on their openings. Josh says that it gave him great confidence to know that if he didn’t get an advantage in the opening/middlegame, he could steer the game into an ending where he knew he could outplay his opponents. And part of this was due to the fact that as the ending drew nearer, his opponents would become less confident because of the lack of study time they had spent on the endgame.
Hopefully sometime in the future the talented
Giddins will put out 50 Essential Chess Endgame Lessons—a book that
will match the high quality and detailed explanations of his previous
effort. However, for now this title serves as a nice set of “microwave
lessons.” On a scale of 1-10, 101 Chess Endgame Tips
gets an 8.
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