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British Chess Federation

Book Review

Fundamental Chess Endings

by Karsten Müller & Frank Lamprecht
Gambit
416 pages, £19.99

Review by Richard Palliser

Muller and Lamprecht's Secrets of Pawn Endings cast much important light on a rather neglected area of endgame literature, but now they have turned their attention to supplying readers with the essential theory for all types of endgame in just one volume. This work has much in common with Speelman, Tisdall and Wade's one-volume encyclopaedia, Batsford Chess Endings, but since that work was published endgame theory has continued to advance. This is partly due to the discoveries of acclaimed endgame experts, such as John Nunn, that many hundreds of thousands of international games have been played in the past eight years, and also that there have been even more advances in terms of computer technology. Fundamental Chess Endings is not just a thorough reference work (though it does that job very well) but is also designed as an instructive endgame manual. Thus it makes perfect sense to start studying at the very beginning, with the basic mates and then pawn endings, before progressing right up to queen endings and some useful general endgame advice.

It is evident throughout that Muller and Lamprecht really want their readers to master their endings, and thus they constantly highlight key themes, and emphasise which positions simply have to be memorised. These are actually rather few in number, but throughout there are very useful section summaries which provide the minimum necessary to remember about that particular type of endgame. Readers are further aided by the authors' constant supply of important practical tips, such as which plan is most likely to cause the most problems for the opponent in a theoretically drawn position. Coverage is not just reduced to positions with limited material (e.g. rook and two v rook and one); there are many examples of how to convert an extra pawn or positional advantage with several pawns each on the board. The coverage for each main type of endgame concludes with puzzles, whilst there is a further chapter consisting solely of puzzles at the end. This helps readers to test their newly acquired knowledge.

Müller and Lamprecht's coverage of important theoretical positions with little material left is also impressive and comprehensive. They make good use of the Nunn Convention for annotating all endings with five or fewer pieces left, which helps to show just how crucial even a small slip can often be. Throughout there are plenty of diagrams, often with circles and stars to illustrate what the result is depending upon where a defender's king stands, especially in endings of queen and pawn against queen based upon work in Nunn's Secrets of Practical Chess.

It is hard not to make a comparison between Fundamental Chess Endings (FCE) and Batsford Chess Endings (BCE). A few endings are perhaps covered in very slightly more theoretical detail in BCE, but this is more than compensated for by the much larger emphasis on practical play in FCE. Meanwhile only FCE covers the endgame of Rook and piece v Rook and piece (with pawns), which occurs in no fewer than 15% of all games. Most readers will also appreciate in FCE the extensive computer-generated table for up to six piece endings which shows what the correct result should be. Overall this is an important one-volume endgame manual, which not only brings endgame theory up to date, but also provides all that the practical player needs to know about each type of ending. It is arguable that endgame knowledge is becoming all the more important in this age of the quickplay finish. Müller and Lamprecht explain and summarise very well throughout and make it as easy as possible for the hardworking student to learn much from this work.