A List of Recommended Books on the End Game

USCF Master Vince Berry has  been kind enough to recommend several recent books on the endgame. Listed below in no particular order is a brief bibliography of some of the books currently available to help you  improve your end game skills:

1. Silman's Complete Endgame Course by Jeremy Silman
2. Fundamental Chess Endings by Karsten Muller and Frank Lamprecht
3. How to Play Chess Endgames by Karsten Muller and Frank Lamprecht
4. Secrets of Pawn Endings by Karsten Muller and Frank Lamprecht
5. Secrets of Rook Endings by John Nunn
6. Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual by Mark Dvoretsky
7. Practical Endgame Play-beyond the basics by Glenn Flear
8. Van Perlos's Endgame Tactics by Van Perlo

Learning the Endgame

When I first started tournament chess and before for that matter, my biggest problem was losing or "hanging" pieces for no compensation. While I still have problems with this from time to time, I improved enough so that I was able to hold on to them most of the time. Then I started calculating simple combinations, including mates and my strength went up again. Eventually I got to where I could get out of the opening more or less in one piece and get a fairly playable middlegame. One area of my game that I seriously neglected was the ending. In part this was a practical decision. Until I could learn to play the middlegame, the ending was usually not relevant if I was a piece down or mated. Unfortunately I found my development stalled because I never learned how to play endings. I am now trying to remedy this problem about 30 years too late. Fortunately today we have a lot of good books on the ending and ChessCountry is running a series of reviews on some of the new books that have recently been released. www.chesscountry.com

ClassTournaments

I visited the Chicago Midwest Class Championships last weekend. In a class tournament, you play people only in your own rating class. In the case of the USCF, this breaks down into Masters, Experts, Class A players, Class B players, Class C players, Class D players, and Class E players. Depending on the tournament organizers, the class maybe further divided. Class tournament are a good way to improve because you play only people who are roughly as strong as you are so at least in theory, everyone has a chance to beat each other. To the results of the Chicago Midwest Class, click here

http://www.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.php?200910119131.7

Active Again

After a long layoff, the Chess Country blog is active again. We will be overhauling the site over the next few months and getting back to basics. Our first step has been to close the store. We are going to concentrate instead on more articles, book reviews, and news as we gather it. Our first order of business will be more timely posts. Lots of interesting things going on in the chess world these days. Magnus Carlson has won the Nanking Pearl Spring Tournament in China. With a round to go has a full two point lead over V. Topalov. His performance in this tournament is one of the strongest of all time. We will contine to gather and post news here as we find it. If you have any ideas as to what you would like to see with regard to chess and our website, please us know.