100 Endgame Patterns You Must Know: Recognize Key Moves & Motifs and Avoid Typical Errors

Description

If you are aware of endgame patterns, you spot key moves quicker, analyse and calculate better, and memorize what you have studied more fully. Most of the patterns Jesus de la Villa presents in this new book are from the phase of the game just before a theoretical endgame turns up. Knowing these practical endgame fundamentals will enable you to fully reap the benefits of what you learned in De la Villa’s widely acclaimed classic 100 Endgames You Must Know. Studying patterns only makes sense if you are going to encounter them frequently. De la Villa presents those with the greatest practical importance and explains and illustrates them with carefully selected examples. To show the patterns as clearly as possible, he mainly concentrates on positions in which the sides have just one piece. Presenting positions with more pieces risks blurring the picture and making motifs less straightforward. The fact that players think in patterns has an important side-effect: their endgame errors tend to repeat themselves. That’s why De la Villa has not just included examples from games of elite GM’s but also of amateurs. Errors are extremely instructive and working with this book will seriously reduce the number of typical mistakes you are prone to make. The many practical exercises that De la Villa selected will help you improve and retain what you learned. Title page Introduction Chapter 1 Pawn endings Pattern 1 The distant passed pawn Pattern 2 The protected passed pawn Pattern 3 The quality of the pawn majorities Pattern 4 King entry Pattern 5 A useless central passed pawn Pattern 6 The bodycheck Pattern 7 The isolated pawn Pattern 8 The breakthrough Pattern 9 Separated passed pawns vs connected passed pawns Pattern 10 The dominant king Pattern 11 Reserve tempi Pattern 12 The opposition and its variants Pattern 13 Triangulation and corresponding squares Pattern 14 Tactical tricks in the race to queen a pawn Pattern 15 Doubled pawns Chapter 2 Knight vs pawns Pattern 16 Distant passed pawns Pattern 17 The barrier Pattern 18 Defence from a remote square Pattern 19 Blockade Pattern 20 The knight’s problems with a single pawn Chapter 3 Bishop vs pawns Pattern 21 Bishop vs distant pawns Pattern 22 The double function of the bishop Pattern 23 Bishop vs three pawns close together Pattern 24 The shortest diagonal Pattern 25 When the pawn is more valuable than the bishop Chapter 4 Rook vs pawns Pattern 26 The unstoppable pawn Pattern 27 The battle of the kings Pattern 28 For and against the candidate pawn Pattern 29 Rook vs three connected pawns Pattern 30 The king trapped on the edge Chapter 5 Queen vs pawns Pattern 31 Obstacles to checks Pattern 32 The struggle against a pawn mass Chapter 6 Same-coloured bishops Pattern 33 A very bad bishop Pattern 34 The highway Pattern 35 An isolated centre pawn Pattern 36 A central passed pawn Pattern 37 The king’s entry Pattern 38 Distant passed pawn Chapter 7 Opposite-coloured bishops Pattern 39 The blockade Pattern 40 The fortress Pattern 41 Zonal defence