Customer Reviews

Starting Out: Rook Endgames

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4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Rook endgames are fundamental to chess. And this book can be read by a complete beginner. All one needs to know is the rules and how to checkmate with King and rook against a lone King.

The author does get off to a bad start with his first (and worst) diagram (how did those Kings get there?). But the rest of the book is excellent. The only improvement I might make would be to include a little on endgames with two rooks on each side.

Ward begins with some absolute basics. Rooks belong behind passed pawns! Checks from the side sometimes salvage draws. Shoulder off that enemy King! Push passed pawns! Keep your rook away from the enemy King. Cut off the enemy King.

We learn about the Opposition. And we learn the most important thing about rook endgames: rooks need to be active. You put them on open files. And on the seventh rank. And you consider sacrificing a pawn to activate your rook.

We learn that when you have a pawn on the seventh and a rook defending it on the eighth, the "skewer" trick is often the way to win.

We see examples of King and rook versus pawns. And we discover that when the defending King is far away, two connected pawns on the sixth defeat the rook.

Ward then teaches us to defend with King and rook versus King, rook and pawn. These positions are drawn unless the defender has a bad King position or an inactive rook. When we have the better King position and the pawn, we learn how to reach the Lucena position and win. And we learn some more tricks, such as stalemate threats and underpromotion.

We also are shown endgames where each side has several pawns. Of course, a basic aspect of rook endgames is that a pawn advantage is often not enough to win, while that same advantage tends to win with the rooks off the board. The defender almost never wants to swap rooks! When considering a rook swap, we're reminded to be really sure about the ensuing pawn endgame.

We see why an extra pawn, with all pawns on the same side of the board, is usually a draw. And we are shown that a 3 to 1 advantage on one side of the board and a 2 to 1 disadvantage on the other side is much better than a 3 to 2 advantage on one side and 1 to 1 on the other.

I liked the fact that we are shown a little about how to defend with King and rook against a King, rook, and two isolated pawns (a and h files or a and c files). That's important, albeit somewhat tricky.

Ward finishes with some practical examples from his games. At the end, there is an easy quiz with twenty multiple choice questions (and detailed answers).

I recommend this book. It is a good introduction to the subject.

This is a fairly light read for an endgame book; you won't get stressed out with reams of analysis as in Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual.

The author has kept it simple and gently provides a few memory hooks for the key concepts. I liked the idea of the 20 question test at the end as it provided a refresher and summary. A couple of the positions had the potential to become King/Rook v King/Queen endings and I would have liked to see those explained as they aren't that straight-forward.

Worth buying because it is so easy to follow.

It usually happenes like this: self learning chess lover buys the opening book and starts to build his game in front of that theme. Afterwards he feels he could learn up his middlegame principles, continuing his progress and totaly ignoring the endgame at the process. At least that is until he starts to excessisevly lose most of his games at time scramble in the ending. And he gets in time trouble because of his subconcius uncertanty when faced with the ending, and especially - rook ending. This book is written for those people. Given material in this book is ideally waged. There is just enough of it to be practical, and there are no complications at all. This book is an ideal patch for those who want to progress with their rating fast and soon. Only flaw? It is for players below 2100 ELO.

A book on endgames written by a GM and British Champion -even if it is for lower rated players- must be blunder-free. After all we live in Rybka era and anybody can check the variations! i.e. In example 19, page 28-31:
a) 1 Ke2?? is awarded an exclamation mark, although it throws away the win after Ke4, or d4.
b) The only winning plan 1 Rb4! is not mentioned at all
c) In the variation starting with 1.Ra8 at the bottom of page 29, 5 Rh6?? in given instead of the correct Rf6+ drawing Then the variation starting with Rh5 is awarded an exclamation mark, although it is losing by force. The worst is that in the "drawing" variation a black pawn advances to h2 on move 9, although it had gone to that square on move 4!! So much for proof-reading.
d) On moves 2-4 of the main variation we get a repetition of moves that is supposed to "to show that White is in the driving seat". Meaningless repetitions are useful (for time management reasons or when the winning plan is not found yet) in practical play, but completely out of place in a rook endgame textbook.

I have to confess that I am greatly dissapointed!

Chess Grandmaster and former British Champion Chris Ward presents Starting Out: Rook Endgames, a guide for intermediate chess players striving to hone their skills. Rook-dominated endgames are one of the most common situations, and the estimated closing situation for one in five chess matches. Starting Out: Rook Endgames is filled cover to cover with diagrams, sample games, tricky situations, tips, tricks, techniques, suggestions, and general advice ("Be careful not to overwork or overload your king - or any other piece for that matter) that will prove valuable to serious-minded chess players everywhere. Like companion volumes in the "Starting Out" series, Starting Out: Rook Endgames is the perfect resource for anyone seeking to better understand individual facets of the ancient, complex, and often brilliantly surprising game of chess.

The book might come in handy for players in the 1200-1400 category. For players over 1600, I'd suggest the relevant chapters of "Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual", plus the volume titled, "Rook Endings" in Averbakh's "Comprehensive Chess Endings". If more depth is required, then Smyslov and Levenfish's "Rook Endings" and Nunn's "Secrets of Rook Endings" (The last is a bible on R+P vs. R).