Understanding Pawn Endgames (Chess Endings)

A leading Ukrainian trainer explains fundamental endgame principles and why players make mistakesUnderstanding the endgame is fundamental to playing good chess, and at its heart lie positions where just kings and pawns remain on the board. Even when a pawn ending is not actually reached, the players must often assess ones that could arise from an exchange of pieces. And an error calculating a pawn ending is normally fatal.Questions of pawn-structure, and thus decisions made early in the game, can be fully understood only when we appreciate how they impact the possible pawn endings.This book takes a practical angle, so is the perfect complement to Secrets of Pawn Endings, which examines their theory in detail. Experienced trainer Bogdanov examines a wealth of pawn endings where strong players made significant errors, and draws lessons and rules of thumb from them. While we are enjoying the entertaining material in this book, we are painlessly absorbing endgame principles and improving our intuitive decision-making skills. We learn how to calculate and identify key positional elements, and appreciate the beautiful tactics and paradoxical ideas that are unique to the world of pawns.The Nunn Convention is used throughout the book, and all the material has been checked in detail with modern NNUE-based engines with access to seven-man tablebases.Topics include:Obvious ErrorsBreakthroughZugzwangOpposition and Corresponding SquaresSpare TempiThe Fight to PromoteChanging the Pawn-StructureCalculationEvaluating the Resulting Queen EndingsPositional PlayInternational Master Valentin Bogdanov has vast experience as a chess trainer, and is from Ukraine. His pupils include grandmasters Moskalenko, Savchenko and Drozdovsky, and he has acted as a second for the well-known grandmaster and theoretician Viacheslav Eingorn since the late 1970s. For 50 years he has been a teacher at the chess school in Odesa (Ukraine), and in 2016 won the European Over-65 Championship. In the same year he also qualified as an International Arbiter and has since then officiated over a great many chess events in his country. This is his fourth book for Gambit."...this gem about pawn endings. Its author has written it from a war zone (Odesa, Ukraine) and since I know that detail I can't stop imagining it with his board and his computer, while sirens and explosions sound in the background. And it makes me want to cry." - FM Luis Fernández Siles @capakhine“Ukrainian master Valentin Bogdanov points out that pawn endings are the basis of all other endgames. That makes sense, because from most endings there are possibilities to reach pawn endgames. Knowledge and experience of them is therefore fundamental for playing good chess. This book has a practical angle and is therefore a nice addition to Gambit’s bestseller Secrets of Pawn Endings (by Karsten Müller and Frank Lamprecht) in which the theory is discussed. ... veteran trainer Bogdanov examines a large number of pawn endgames where strong players go wrong. Certain ideas, laws and rules of thumb can be distilled from this.” - IM Herman Grooten, schaaksite-nl“a well-written book that can help amateurs play better pawn endgames in a relative short period of time. The author explains each topic in a clear, concise and educative way. Hence, the size of the book is relatively small and the chess player is not intimidated (compared to existing monographs on pawn endings). Whether you struggle with or love pawn endgames, it is the time to read Understanding Pawn Endgames and improve your chess results.” – Miguel Ararat, Florida Chess Magazine“A thorough course” – John Elburg, chessbooks-nl Read more