John Emms' The Survival Guide to Rook Endings is back to the "fairly advanced" category. It has the same obligatory introductory comment: "I've tried not to fall into the same trap as some endgame books which, while being fascinating, tend to devote too much space to rare and impractical positions." At least he said "some!" Anyway, Emms does his usual excellent job, first presenting the basics at length. He isn't quite thorough enough on some useful R+P vs. R positions, but he makes the Vancura position easily comprehensible, which is no mean feat. Emms devotes most of the book to real examples, often drawn from his own play (20 of them). I think the fascinating thing about this book is that, with some exceptions in the last two chapters, Emms manages to stick with relatively simplified and simple-looking positions that, however, are terribly difficult to solve. In fact, the players involved, mostly grandmasters, tended to make multiple mistakes, regardless of how straightforward a position looked. What to say? I like this book a lot and recommend it to just about anyone who isn't having an easy time with Korchnoi's book! It is readable and reasonably comprehensive, but doesn't sacrifice complexity for easy answers. A trivial and inessential gripe: I wonder why Smyslov and Levenfish's Rook Endings isn't given in the Bibliography? Okay, the other books mentioned contain all or most of that material, but is it really fair not to give credit to such a classic?

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