Product Description

Basic Chess Endings, written by International Grandmaster Reuben Fine, is the most authoritative reference on the endgame. Serious students of the game find the work unmatched in its depth and range. Now, Grandmaster Pal Benko has revised this classic with the latest innovations in the endgame and adapted the book to algebraic notation. The result is what chess aficionados have been eagerly waiting for--a thoroughly modern bible on basic chess endings.

A handy guide for the practical player, Basic Chess Endings focuses on the aspects of the ending that occur most frequently in the course of play. With clear language, it reinforces knowledge of the standard position and tried-and-tested rules. Hundreds of diagrams make examples easy to follow. An indispensable reference for every chess player.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #330879 in Books
• Published on: 2003-11-11
• Released on: 2003-11-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 586 pages

Review
"This is the definitive work on the endgame, which all serious students of the game have been waiting for. It is a prodigious feat of chess scholarship, presented to the reader in clear, pithy language, full of telling phrases that will linger in the memory and rise to aid the harassed competitor just when he needs it most.... The authoritative reference work on the subject.... Reuben Fine's book is indispensable."

-- The New York Times

"Grandmaster Fine has done a brilliant piece of work. There is no doubt that it will receive the recognition of the entire chess world."

-- M. M. Botvinnik

From the Back Cover
"This is the definitive work on the endgame, which all serious students of the game have been waiting for. It is a prodigious feat of chess scholarship, presented to the reader in clear, pithy language, full of telling phrases that will linger in the memory and rise to aid the harassed competitor just when he needs it most.... The authoritative reference work on the subject.... Reuben Fine's book is indispensable."

-- The New York Times

"Grandmaster Fine has done a brilliant piece of work. There is no doubt that it will receive the recognition of the entire chess world."

-- M. M. Botvinnik

About the Author
REUBEN FINE was an International Grandmaster and one of the world's greatest chess players ever. His books, including Basic Chess Endings and The Middlegame in Chess, are among the all-time classics of chess literature.

PAL BENKO, reviser, is a Grandmaster who has been twice a candidate for the World Championship. He has finished atop eight U.S. Chess Opens, and has achieved an outstanding record in chess olympiads as a player and as a team captain.

Customer Reviews

a classic masterwork on chess endings
This is a great but also a difficult book. Because it deals with a very complex subject, moreover is not an approachable text for chess newbies, therefore I should not award it more than four stars-- it's not for all!
Yet this great marvel ought to be on the book shelf of any chess master! For having so many hundreds of pages of clear (and dry) examples in this book ; this has stood the test of time. Now it is revised, in-print and in the newer algebraic notation format. The couple of dozen errors which were unknowable to anyone before computer analysis of endgames was available have been ammended by Grandmaster Pal Benko.
Honestly I can think of easier endgame books, like Auerbach's 5 volume set (now available on a cd-rom by Convekta-dot-com a russian publishing house) or certainly the are simpler rook ending books such as Emm's work and simpler pawn-ending books like Fishbein's work. but Reuben Fine-- the greatest US contender for the world chess championship before RJ Fischer--the man Botvinnik (and the soviet system of chess) most worried about before he gave up chess for medicine-- knew his stuff better than the rest.
Don't ever try to read this kind of book straight on. Look at your own chess games. Look at the type of endings which you are playing right now. Then study those ending-types in Fine's taxonomy of endings via the book index. This method will make you fearless of the ending. You will more willing to play strategic chess with complex endings instead of rock'em sock'em blitz. You will enjoy longer time-controls. This kind of book can change a young man's chess game alot. But you have to put the work into this book to get that. So it's not for all players.

The best single reference work around
First let me state that I was NOT planning to write a review until I read some of the other reviews. (Some of them are very misleading).

This book is a fantastic reference book covering virtually any major ending situation that you would likely come accross in actual play. It is NOT a textbook - although it could be used to learn basic endings, there are many better books to fill this gap.

This book is probably most useful (as a reference work) for more advanced players (say 1500 - 1600 USCF & up) who have likely already studied other endgame manuals.

This book would probably also be useful for a post-mortem (analyzing a game after the fact) to determine where a particular player went astray.

It is well organized, good diagrams, good binding, etc. It has also been converted to algebraic notation (which was a drawback to the older editions).

Some of the earier reviews were most likely referring to the older editions of the book.

Hey, for 25 bucks you would be hard pressed to find anything better!

An amazing effort
I can't give this book anything other than 5 stars. This is a monumental effort that remained the serious chess players Endgame Bible for years.

Now, should new players use this book as a training manual? No. There are far better books to teach you the endgame. This is a REFERENCE work. A reference work done before huge computer databases and tablebases. There is a revision coming with algebraic notation and corrections done by computers etc. Regardless, the book will never be as useful as it once was. I'm compelled however to give the credit that is due Fine. It's quite possibly the most ambitious chess book ever written.