Nunn's Chess Endings: v. 1 [Paperback]

This book is part of a three-volume endgame mastery course by John Nunn, a grandmaster with many previous innovative endgame books to his credit. The first volume, Understanding Chess Endgames, was originally meant to be an introductory chapter to the book Nunn wanted to write, but his "introductory" material was voluminous to justify an entire book to itself. That volume is a pretty good endgame course in itself, almost as good as Howell's excellent but prohibitively expensive Essential Chess Endings: The Tournament Player's Guide.

This book goes further in depth into all endgames that do not have a Rook on the board. The material is simply outstanding. Nunn's intent is not to offer an academically-correct introduction to the endgame, but rather to prepare the student for the rigors of over-the-board play. To that end, this volume (and volume 2, which focuses on endgames with a Rook) focuses on three principles, which Nunn believes must be blended seamlessly at all times to play the endgame well. The first, knowledge, comes from the first book, mentioned above; it involves having the right sort of ideas in mind before sitting down at the board. The second, imagination, stems in part from talent and in part from experience. The third, calculation, shows up as vital in every example in this book. It's the need to blend these factors -- ALL the ideas, ALL the imagination, and especially, ALWAYS careful calculation -- which Nunn highlights so well. His examples show time and time again how strong players miss important nuances, not only during play but even later when annotating games, and thereby lose half-points and even full points after hours of struggle. The only preventative measure, in Nunn's opinion, is to develop the habit of playing on general principles while at the very same time engaging in accurate calculation at every step. This book provides hundreds of examples on just how to do this -- and the price to be paid for insufficient attention to detail.

I don't want to scare off potential readers. The material is not skull-crackingly complex. Endgames don't have subtle maneuvers and incomprehensible issues such as piece coordination. Endgame play, above all, is clear. Nevertheless, Nunn really succeeds in driving hom his point: in addition to having the right principles in mind, and combining them in imaginative ways, the player must also calculate with care, or winning or drawing nuances will be easy to overlook. As a result, each of the examples needs to be studied with some care and the lessons thoroughly absorbed. This is not a book to read in a day or even a week, but in a month or two. It is accessible to any tournament player, yet demands effort and attention, which it will richly reward.

For years, Nunn has been among those trying to counter the "conventional wisdom" in chess, which describes middlegames as the provice of tactics, and endgames as the province of prior knowledge. To the contrary, he shows the endgame as the most tactical phase of them all. And to good end: as others, such as Beliavsky, have demonstrated in their books, strong players fail in the endgame over and over, not because they lack knowledge or are insufficiently imaginative, but because they fail to consider tactical features of the position.

Anyone who studies this book and its two companion volumes will have very little to fear from anyone up to Grandmaster strength in the endgame. Tremendous achievement to John Nunn, and thanks for such a great training program.

You might feel that the title must be an exaggeration-however please keep reading my review.

I am a player in the 2000-2100 area who spent a lot of hours and wasted energy on those books.
Seems like Nunn has never improved his play when reading a chess book,since the only way of doing so is thinking for yourself while reading it.
I really tried hard to do so but failed for the following reasons:

-There are no exercises for the reader to solve (except 3 in the first chapter of the first book,making it 1.5 exercise per book on average).

-When the author presents a position where it is white to move or black to move,in a lot of them the side to move loses! or that the other side can play for a draw from a seemingly better position for the side to move.
(making sure that your time will be wasted even if you will insist like me to try and learn something).

So far so bad but there is more:

-a lot of the positions are mistakes 2500-2700 players (strong GMs!) did in their play or analysis or both,probably found via a computer engine,making the huge majority of the book over the head of more than 98% of chessplayers,
and just to make sure to earn the title the worst chess endgame book of all times,the analysis seems computer like lines.
Here is a random example (I opened the book at a random page,most pages are like that):

Vol1 Page 121-=
"Plays c5+ Black replies Kc7,transposing into the game) 9..e3+ 10.Ke2 h2 11.g7 h1=Q 12.g8=Q Qh2+ Kxe3 Qe5+ Kf3...."

Okay,the sharp eyed chessplayer might say,this was a pawn endgame...so how about this-
P121 Vol2(which is about endgames involving rooks)- (I Chose the same page just to show my point,any random page will do here as well): "black ensures that white doesn't have a check and thus keeps his rook imprisoned on h1 5.Kf2 Ra3 Now it's easy for black Rxh2 Ra2+ Kg1 Rxh2 8.Kxh2 Kf3 9.Kh3 g4+ 10.Kh2 Kf2...'"

To summarize,if i could i would give this book zero stars. If you are U2200 I recommend the book Silman's complete endgame course,where all positions and moves are explained.
This Nunn book is a waste of money even if it costed 1 cent and more importantly your precious time when you are willing to study! You will learn NOTHING from it.

If you are not sure even after reading this review,go to your local bookstore and take a look in your own eyes before wasting your resources on those books!

This first volume in a major two volume set, "Nunn's Chess Endings" by chess grandmaster John Nunn is a 320-page compendium covering in extensive detail pawn endings, queen endings and minor-piece endings. Chess enthusiasts will be able to benefit form Nunn's particular expertise and experience with respect to playing out standard end games, finding the right methods in tricky real-life practical situations, including those that vary from idealized forms covered by traditional end game manuals. "Nunn's Chess Endings" identifies new and important motifs which occur repeatedly in over-the-board play; features tactical elements; corrects previous analysis; emphasizes end games susceptible to concrete analysis; is specifically designed to assist the over-the-board player and avoids composed or artificial positions; cogently presents ideas underlying analysis with respect to end game play and strategies. Definitive, comprehensive, and thoroughly 'user friendly', "Nunn's Chess Endings" is a strongly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library Chess reference collections and supplemental reading lists.