Reviewing this book is daunting. It was my/our "bible" for decades of the old tournament play (with adjournments) and for correspondence players. Imagine – one volume containing all the truth about the endgame! All endgames! There was seemingly no need to study others. After adjourning a game, I would rush to my hotel room and consult my bible – and I don't mean the Gideons'. And how does one presume to criticize the bible?

Through the years the infallibility of BCE was chipped away at and destroyed. How else could it be, when Reuben Fine, colossal player that he was, bestriding the world scene from 1935 until the world war, claimed to have written it in just four months, without benefit of Fritz? Analytical errors were naturally found. Chief resource for these was the Chess Life column of Larry Evans, who vetted numerous corrections from readers. Each one I painstakingly entered into the margins of my copy of the original BCE. I typed up four pages of them for Pal Benko, and he told me he knew all but one! As well, when I found intriguing examples from tournament play, I entered them. The margins of this old copy are an endgame treasure-trove.

Then individuals came forth with pamphlets collating many corrections. Rev. Chew & Paul Crane did so in 1981. S. Louie independently issued three booklets from 1990 to 1993. It is a pity that this edition does not cite them. The revised edition omits even the brief bibliography of the original. All the work on BCE appears to have been done by us Americans.

Now for declarations. I knew or know the author, reviser, editor (Burt Hochberg) and the writer of the foreward, Russian endgame encyclopedist Yuri Averbakh, who gave me a free endgame lesson in a blitz game at his Moscow home a decade ago. I am on friendly terms with all of them, as with Master Silman. I even visited Fine once for some avuncular advice when I was considering a chess career. Only later did he take great offense at me, for a scathing Chess Life review of his book on Fischer, when he carried psychoanalytical insights to a ridiculous extreme. And I took equal offense at his allowing BCE to be reprinted several times without making the known corrections. If I did the same with a medical book, I'd commit malpractice by pen. After all, we serious players depended on Fine.

Two examples from my own tournament practice. At Venice I missed a chance to set a record for game length, vs. Troianescu. After 15 hours and 120 moves of play I had Q+P vs. Q. Having memorized Fine's dictum that it always draws except with a center P or BP on the 7th supported by the K, I graciously offered a draw – since I had a RP. Taimanov rushed up to me and asked, “Why?” There were still winning chances. It depends on K position. Roycroft has advanced this study, and I have important articles by Mednis & by Gik. Indeed, this is one example of Fine's more serious errors – the wrong general rule. And, regrettably, here Benko repeats it unaltered. And he omits the extensive work by Botvinnik on the NP after his famous game with Minev. In No. 1085 it is hard to accept that "Black wins." It states, “12.Qb4 is necessary” but doesn't show best play. Indeed, the Q section is the weakest one of the revised edition. It is stuck in 1941.

As well, in a weekend Swiss I learned the error of the Fine rule about B plus two disconnected Ps vs. opposite-colored B: "Here there is a general rule which is applicable to all cases: If the Ps are two or more files apart, they win...." Sic! See Cheron, vol. 2, pp.370-381. Even three files apart, there are many draws! See, e.g., Shamkovich-Zilberstein, USSR Ch'p 1972. I am disappointed that the only concession that Benko makes here is to change "all" to "most." This pseudo-rule is not worthy of survival, period.

More quibbles: I found four Laskers in the book: “Dr.,” “Ed,”  “Em.,” & just plain “Lasker.”  Two too many, and doctoral degrees are irrelevant in chess (don't I know it!). Both Laskers get my maximum respect without PhDs. Then there is the famous Fine-Reshevsky, Semmering-Baden 1937(No. 471), where a lone B managed to draw vs. N & two connected passed Ps. Benko leaves it thus, but Moroney in 1970 showed a win with 4.Nd4 & 5.g6 (marginal note, self!). In No. 991, Vidmar lost to Alekhine with N+3Ps vs. R+2Ps, all on one side. But I distinctly remember Fischer-Robatsch, Vincovci 1968 in this basic ending. The tournament book erroneously gave it as a draw without play. I knew Fischer better than that, and he confirmed to me that he had played the game out. The missing moves appear in the Wade-O'Connell book of Fischer's games. Surely the revised BCE should take it into account – but Robatsch probably drew easily because he left his f-P unmoved – a different position.

Here we learn that two Bs definitely beat a lone N, without the old hedges, but sometimes requiring over 50 moves. I learned it the hard way in Reno in an 11-hour ordeal a few years ago, when I had as many as 3Ps vs. Browne. He proceeded to pick off every one, then the N. After the game Igor Ivanov told me that I could have drawn by keeping my remaining P on Bishop 3 & N on Kt 2 – impregnable.

To sum up, this is an improved BCE, at last mercifully corrected, converted to algebraic (not figurine) with additions of studies by the endgame composing genius, Pal Benko, re-numbered (the old No. 1, 1a, 1b have been changed to 1,2,3, the latter two without diagrams). Benko's work has improved the bible, but it is still basically the bible of 1941. BCE in its panorama of all endgames, remains in a class by itself. But a truly new BCE, incorporating the wealth of experience of the past six decades, including computer studies, it is not. That new comprehensive work remains for a youthful, energetic, assiduous and encyclopedic writer of the future.