#154 in Humor & entertainment books
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Reddit mentions of Fundamental Chess Endings
Sentiment score: 4
Reddit mentions: 6
We found 6 Reddit mentions of Fundamental Chess Endings. Here are the top ones.
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- Gambit Publications
Features:
Specs:
| Color | Black |
| Height | 9.8 Inches |
| Length | 6.8 Inches |
| Number of items | 1 |
| Release date | August 2001 |
| Weight | 1.63 Pounds |
| Width | 1.2 Inches |
https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Chess-Endings-Karsten-M%C3%BCller/dp/1901983536
This is the book that Carlsen had in his too weak too slow video.
Its actually really good, better than Silman's book.
I gave you some advice for each book at each level. Of course all of these books can be switched around and if you want to read Dvoretsky (A very advanced author) at your level you're welcome to. Although a 1300 rating on lichess.org is still at a beginner level so I suggest you start from that section.
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Beginner:
Play Winning Chess By: Yasser Seirawan
Logical Chess Move by Move By: Irving Chernev
How to Reasses Your Chess By: Jeremy Silman
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Intermediate:
Practical Chess Exercises By: Ray cheng
The Art of Defense in Chess By: Andrew Soltis
Pawn Structure Chess By: Andrew Soltis
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Master:
Fundamental Chess Endings By: Karsten-Müller and Frank Lamprecht.
Art of Attack in Chess By: Vladimir Vukovic
Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual By: Mark Dvoretsky
I make study programs all the time. I like designing them for myself and testing them; usually they're very effective. It all depends upon how much time you have to spare. Self Study is key; I wouldn't waste my time with a coach, unless you can find a magical coach. I tried one and I hated it.
I'll break everything down by category and include some books.
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Tactics: I'd just use Chesstempo.com for tactics. Don't waste your money on the paid version; it's not necessary. I just imagine that eventually you'd be able to buy a book with the money you waste on ChessTempo and a book is a permanent resource that you could have with you for the rest of your life. When you get really good like 1900uscf+ as far as books go, I'd say try out Paata Gaprindashvili's book, Imagination in Chess.[http://www.amazon.com/Imagination-Chess-Creatively-Foolish-Mistakes/dp/0713488913] It's a complete Titan of a book and the puzzels are EXTREMELY difficult.
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Positional/Strategical play: I usually recommend Jeremy Silman's Reassess your Chess 4th edition, but Lately i've been recommending John Nunn's, Undersatnding Middle Games, because Jeremy Silman's writing is really fun the FIRST or SECOND time you read through it, but he has a lot of jokes and other nonsense he prattles on about, so it becomes really burdensome to read through over and over... Be warned, I only have a Kindle Sample of John Nunn's book, but It looks much more serious and perhaps even superior.
As far as practicing the skills you gain from one of those two books, I'd like to recommend Jeremy Silman's Work Book. I'd probably say Buy Nunn's book and then buy the Silman work book. The workbook has a crash course on "Silman's" imbalances, and I think that'd probably be sufficient.
Links:
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Endings:
There are some amazing endgame sources out there, but I'd probably stick with Jeremy Silman's Complete endgame course. [http://www.amazon.com/Silmans-Complete-Endgame-Course-Beginner/dp/1890085103/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1N286TXXYT32NB4SY38C]
If you want a much more serious and a much heavier book you can try Fundamental Chess Endings[http://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Chess-Endings-Karsten-Muller/dp/1901983536/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406648960&sr=1-9&keywords=chess+endgame+books]
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Openings: I'd probably just stick with general openings for now. Studying openings in depth takes up an enormous amount of time. ENORMOUS. If you study them in depth, you'll have no time for anything else unless you literally sit at home for 8 hours a day just doing nothing.
I'd like to direct you to Roman's Lab on Youtube.com:
2.Or you can watch this one(it's the 1.d4 video series), which I used in tournaments vs 1700-2000uscf and was extremely successful [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX9Ax29jZ1k]
For black? It's harder, I don't know any good videos like there are for white. You could try wikipedia and play something safe like Caro-kann vs e4 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caro_Kann_Defense] and vs d4 play something safe and reliable like Queen's Gambit Declined [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen%27s_Gambit_Declined]
The only problem with those openings is that it's hard to lose and it's also hard to win, so they're not too dynamic and it may be hard to find a plan as a beginner. Many people say do the Nimzo vs d4 and the sicilian vs e4, but they can be much sharper and a lot easier to lose with if you don't know what you're doing. I always preferred solid over dynamic tight rope walking; it's kind of a pain.
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I'd also recommend an annotated chess book, so that you can go over the games and basically round up all the above training.
I like Franco Zenon:
1.The Art of Attacking Chess[http://www.amazon.com/Art-Attacking-Chess-Zenon-Franco/dp/1904600972/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406649342&sr=1-2&keywords=franco+zenon+attack]
2.Grandmaster Secrets: Counter-Attack! [http://www.amazon.com/Grandmaster-Secrets-Counter-Attack-Zenon-Franco/dp/1906454094/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_z]
Both by Franco Zenon. Also great is: "How Karpov Wins." [http://www.amazon.com/How-Karpov-Wins-Second-Enlarged/dp/0486278816/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406649393&sr=1-3-fkmr0&keywords=how+to+win+like+karpov]
Some people also recommend John Nunn's "Understanding Chess Move by move" but i've never even looked inside of it before: [http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Chess-Move-John-Nunn/dp/1901983412/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406649416&sr=1-2&keywords=Chess+move+by+move&dpPl=1]
Also Check out the Saint Louise Chess Club on youtube. Ben Finegold and Akobian offer the BEST annotations on the games. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjZiy6FqqyE)
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Conclusion: well, it's long as hell, but that basically sums it up. As far as applying all these things to study you can do something simple like
Monday-Sunday (this is Mon,Tues,Wed,Thurs,Fri,Sat, AND Sun) Do like 10-20 Tactical puzzles on Chess Tempo, and 2-5 Silman's Workbook puzzles everyday.
Every 2 or 3 days do 1 game out of Franco Zenon's Book or Karpov's or whatever Annotated resource you have. (Studies show masters and the better chess players spent the most time looking at master games)
On Friday-Saturday-Sunday: Study your openings and Endgames
This should be enough to provide you with very rapid and substantial improvement. You pretty much get what you put into it. If you get a coach, all he is going to do is open a book like one of the above mentioned ones and just do exercises out of it, or something very similar. Except you have to pay him like $50-$100 an hour, when you could just buy the ENTIRE book for like $15 or $20 ONCE and you have the ENTIRE information for a lifetime.
https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Chess-Endings-Karsten-M%C3%BCller/dp/1901983536/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525404650&sr=8-1
https://www.amazon.com/Play-Chess-Endgames-Karsten-M%C3%BCller-ebook/dp/B00JKR7DKO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1525404650&sr=8-3
Middlegame: There aren't so many middle-game books, but I liked Ludek Pachman's books. There were originally 3, but when they were translated to English they made it a 2-volume set. There are others like Yusupov or Dvoretsky or Romanovsky, but you could probably pick a couple randomly and get good ones.
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Endgame: Again, there's a lot of variety. I like a very large one done by a German Mueller and Lamprecht.
https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Chess-Endings-Karsten-M%C3%BCller/dp/1901983536/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=chess+endgame&qid=1567215435&s=gateway&sr=8-14
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Unfortunately for me I have none of these today. I sold and loaned some books some time ago and I especially miss the endgame book.
If you are a newbie this is what you should do:
Get a proper chess course/book/video/whatever that explains well the basic tactics, positional game and most importantly the endgame. Back in the 90s I loved Karpov's introductory book but I don't think what's out there now, I read it in a different language and I cannot find it in English anywhere. In chess.com I think there's plenty of material including introductory material, although I haven't gone through it.
Don't just play the computer on easy levels too much, this is mostly a waste of time and won't improve your game at the beginner level. It's a common mistake. It will actually stall you big time if you get used to play back moves, have no discipline to continue in disadvantage and play for the draw, etc. Keep it real against even a poor computer opponent. Play it no more than a few times a day.
Don't try to memorize a lot of opening lines. Memorize the basic ideas from a good generic introductory source. Don't go reading opening books as a beginner, that can wait. Definitely the endgame must be mastered before going into that.
This is how you effectively use a computer as a beginner:
EDIT: another book you can peek inside for classic endgame positions and tactics http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pandolfinis-Endgame-Course-Concepts-Explained/dp/0671656880/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418228655&sr=1-1&keywords=pandolfini%27s+endgame+course
All that should keep you busy for a while. Then, calculation and tactical + positional theory. Maybe best with a coach because it will be hard to keep motivation on your own with just books.
EDIT2: as a beginner, you should not spend more than 15-20 minutes trying to figure out one single position. If you find yourself doing that, you are aiming too high. Your learning will be a lot more effective if it's incremental. As a higher-intermediate maybe studying a position from a book 20 minutes is just fine. But by then you will know.