A different kind of book is Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy, recently reprinted. The first thing I noticed is how restrained and almost conventional this book is, in stark contrast to Shereshevsky's brilliant-but-mad, analytically-flawed book The Soviet Chess Conveyor, which is sort of a cult classic. First, we present the usual claim: "Chess literature contains very few works on the endgame, and in the main these are reference books, in which theoretical and not practical positions are analyzed. The present book [studies] basic practical principles."

Okay, what's in the book? Some chapter titles are "Centralization of the king," "The role of pawns in the endgame," "The principle of two weaknesses," "The two bishops," and, to Soltis' delight, "Do not hurry," although Shereshevsky makes clear that this is far from a Commandment, calling its logic "mainly psychological," and emphasizing that "on no account should this principle be abused," with an explanation of why that is.

In fact, one will not learn the basics from this book at all; rather, it is a series of mostly complex examples, often in the middlegame rather than in the ending! Indeed, there are 62 pages of "complex endings"; and most players would call the vast majority of the rest of the book's examples quite complex as well. I am very impressed by his insistence that "everything depends upon the specific features of the position." Also his tendency (more pronounced in his other endgame books) to take positions and structures that derive from certain popular openings. I like this book a lot, but it has more to do with transitions from the middlegame than with endings themselves.

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