Chess endgame literature
Many chess masters have contributed to the theory of endgames over the centuries, including Ruy López de Segura, François-André Philidor, Josef Kling and Bernhard Horwitz, Johann Berger, Alexey Troitsky, Yuri Averbakh, and Reuben Fine.
Most books cover endgames in which the proper course of action (see list of chess terms#Optimal play) has been analyzed in detail.
However, an increasing number of books are about endgame strategy, where exact analysis is not currently possible, due to the presence of more pieces.
[1] A thirteenth-century Latin book by an unknown author examined the endgame of a knight versus a pawn, and formed the basis of later work by Alexey Troitsky in the twentieth century.
Several writers published books developing endgame theory: Gioachino Greco in 1624, Philipp Stamma in 1737, and François-André Philidor in 1749.
[6] In the eighteenth century important books were written by Italians (the "Modenese Masters") Domenico Lorenzo Ponziani, Ercole del Rio (1750), and Giambattista Lolli (1763).
He studied the endgame of a queen versus two bishops and agreed with the earlier opinion of Salvio that it was generally a draw.
[11] In 1851 Bernhard Horwitz and Josef Kling published Chess Studies, or endings of games, which contained 427 positions.
In 1884 Horwitz added more than fifty positions to the book, retitled it Chess Studies and End-Games, and completely omitted Kling's name.
[12] Other important books were Fins de parties d'echecs by Phillipe Ambroise Durand and Jean-Louis Preti in 1871, and Teoria e pratica del giuoco degli scacchi by Signor Salvioli in 1877.
[21] Grandmaster Andrew Soltis in a 2004 book expressly disagreed with Staunton, claiming that rook versus two bishops and knight is drawn with correct play.
[26] In 1927 Ilya Rabinovich published a comprehensive book in Russian titled The Endgame, which was designed for teaching.
In 1941, Reuben Fine published Basic Chess Endings, an attempt to collect all practical endgame knowledge into one volume.
He later expanded that into the four-volume Lehr- und Handbuch der Endspiele in German, which was translated from the 1952 version in French.
