Chess Book Review: Silman's Complete Endgame Course (Jeremy Silman)

International Master Jeremy Silman is well-known for his critically acclaimed books The Amateur's Mind and How to Reassess Your Chess. Both of these books talked about planning in chess - a difficult, complex topic that was mostly glossed over in chess literature before Silman tackled it. Now, with Silman's Complete Endgame Course, Silman tries to cover the endgame - a subject that has been covered hundreds, if not thousands of times previously - in a new, engaging way. Once again, he has been wildly successful.

Silman has organized his book in a very interesting manner. Instead of grouping endgames by theme, as many previous tomes have done, the author has structured the lessons by ability level. This allows an improving player to read only to a certain point, after which they may put the book away and focus on other parts of their game until a higher level of competition requires learning more difficult material.

For instance, Part One is titled "Endgames for Beginners," and covers everything Silman thinks a player rated under 1000 will need to know. This isn't a lot of dense material on rook and pawn endings; rather, Silman teaches the beginning player how to perform the most important "overkill" checkmates, such as king and two queens, king and queen, and king and rook, as well as how to avoid stalemates.

That's all he teaches. In fact, he then instructs the reader to go play games and stop reading the book until they're ready for more! It is refreshing to read a book where the author is honest with the readership, and doesn't claim that every player needs to know everything the book contains.

Of course, for more advanced players, there is more advanced material. Silman devotes a chapter to each class of player, from Class E to Class A, followed by Expert and Master. Lessons build on one another, so readers who are in Class A, for instance, may wish to glance at the earlier chapters to make sure they understand all of the material presented; if not, they may be skipping some crucial information required to understand the topics on their level.

Not everything in the book is hard work. The final chapter is titled "Endgames for Pure Pleasure," and as Silman says, it can be enjoyed by players of any level. This section covers Dominated and Entombed Minor Pieces, as well as some interesting endgame tactics. Silman also takes time to discuss who he believes are the five greatest endgame players ever: Lasker, Rubinstein, Capablanca, Smyslov and Fischer.

It is true that most, if not all of the topics covered in this book have been dealt with before. However, Silman's presentation and structuring make the material accessible to anyone in a way few books have previously achieved. There are plenty of explanatory diagrams, and important information stands out in boxes or bullet points. Each chapter ends with a series of tests designed to allow the user to prove their comprehension of the material they've just learned.

As much as I've praised this book, I should also mention what it is not. While this is hardly a fault, Silman does not cover the depth of material presented in a book like Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. While Dvoretsky's book is intended to teach everything about everything, and makes a wonderful reference for virtually any conceivable endgame, Silman's book is designed only to give the reader the practical knowledge necessary to succeed against players at their level. Both books are excellent, but they serve very different purposes. In fact, Silman includes Dvoretsky's book - among others - at the end of his for further reading. There should be room for both on any serious player's bookshelf.

I can enthusiastically recommend Silman's Complete Endgame Course to anyone looking to improve their endgame skills. It is a worthy addition to Silman's fine series of chess books.