The 100 Endgames You Must Know Workbook: Practical Endgame Exercises for Every Chess Player Paperback – May 15, 2019

I purchased the main textbook and had read about 30% of it by the time the workbook was released. Only last week did I start working on the exercises in the work book. I've done 12 so far, got 10 correct (one was a trick question). I'm rated around 1900 USCF and 1800 FIDE.One example of how doing the exercises really helped cement the concepts was when I did problems 10-12 from Ch 1 (you can see it if you click the "view inside" feature on Amazon), even though I had read about R vs B endgames, and the right corner vs the wrong corner, it was when I finally attempted these exercises that I got to actively figure things out. After having done just these few problems, I don't think I'll ever forget the concepts of the right vs wrong corners in a B vs R endgame and how to keep the opposition king in the wrong corner, and what to do if the opponent perpetuates the "right corner catastrophe". etc.So I can't wait to do this everyday and really hammer home all the most important endgame concepts. I sincerely believe that finishing this workbook along with reading the main book over the course of the next several months will significantly improve my OTB results.

I like this book because you are challenged to solve a lot of quests.

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This workbook is a follow-up for de la Villa's basic endgames collection. It would be beneficial to have studied this earlier work before tackling this book. The book's layout is excellent, well-themed, easy to study diagrams throughout. There are a few books from the last century (eg Speelman, Chernev) that looked into this territory. However their works relied primarily on endgame studies for material (which are of course are creations by endgame specialists) and the depth and explanations are are far deeper. Also de la Villa has +90% actual game positions, mostly from after 2000. Which is an impressive effort. His notes are succinct, yet thorough. Basic positions here are a king, a pawn (sometime two) and a piece (sometimes both players have one, sometimes only one). Positions are purely about technique. They are all hard to solve, or very hard to solve. But are from actual play and the time constraints of do or die within modern time limits. Readers ares not intended to memorize positions as much as acquire the skill to handle these. Diligent readers should experience improvements in calculating ability, vision for plan making and technical knowledge. These positions demand a great deal of effort to unlock and understand the concepts. I recommend readers actually set-up the position on an actual board and attempt to self-limit to 30 minutes or less (I see nothing wrong with forgoing touch-move and you should try play these positions out a few times -- as the point is to learn the concepts through repetition). I do not foresee players rated below 2000 as needing this level of skill, however IMs & Gms and wannabees will want to look through this book, because they know some of their rivals are already primed with this knowledge.My review copy was a library loan. I do not plan to buy this book. One reason is that I already have plenty of more relevant books for my needs and have ended my tournament career anyway. Also Dvortetsky's Endgame book covers much of the same territory, although de la Villa has a much neater and better organized book.

My 12 year old never got j to this book, and I thought maybe it was just him. I tried to read the book myself and I found it a bit hard to understand, not easy to read, tedious, and not very intuitive. This is not for beginners. And you must really, really love chess, have patience, and reading dense materials to embrace this book.

Well-written