Understanding Queen Endgames

Faktisk en revolusjonerende bok om dronningsluttspill og sluttspill med dronning mot andre offiserer, som også Kramnik konstaterer i forordet. Gode øvingsoppgaver, også mest fra aktuelle partier, høyner bruksverdien for alle.

En uventet herlig bok som kombinerer erfaringer fra mesterspill, undervisning i sluttspill og harde fakta fra dataanalyser med Tablebase i bunnen. Spennende for alle, men nyttemessig antagelig mest for spillere på ratingnivåer fra cirka 1700 og helt opp.

Forlagets egen omtale:

Knowing the abilities and limitations of the powerful queen is very valuable for mastering the secrets of the royal game, and this can be studied best in the endgame.

This book follows a dual philosophy as in the three previous works by the same authors: Understanding Rook Endgames, Understanding Minor Piece Endgames and Understanding Rook vs. Minor Piece Endgames. The 7-piece endings are dealt with in great detail. They are often so complex that pre-tablebase analysis almost always contains errors. Many new discoveries are revealed here.

But to really understand the fight of a queen against a queen or minor pieces with rooks, these theoretical positions are of course not enough. So subchapters on the principles of each material configuration have been added.

Fra Kramniks forord:

Before reading this book, I was convinced that there were no new chess subjects left which had not already been covered by one author or another.But this titanic work seems to be the first one analyzing in depth the endgames queen vs. queen and queen vs. other pieces.

Such positions are very difficult, if only for purely mathematical reasons – the queen is the most mobile peace in chess, and the amount of possible options is incomparably higher than in any other type of endgames. ...

All in all, this fantastic book is already on my (very short) “must study” list for chessplayers of different levels, including the top ten! I want to thank the authors for the courage which is required just to start working on such a complex topic, as well as for the very high quality of their work, which will endure for decades to come and will be very useful for many future generations of chessplayers.

– from the Foreword by Vladimir Kramnik, 14th World Chess Champion