101 Endgame Masterclasses: Rooks and Material Imbalances

This book aims to provide you with a wealth of self-learning knowledge on handling different types of endings that occur frequently but about which there is not much literature analyzing recent games. Unbalanced material endings involving rooks are a key focus of the book, covering three-fifths of the material, and all endings in the book feature at least one rook. The vast majority of games are from recent years, including many from 2021-2022. Like the author's previous endings book published with Elk and Ruby, 101 Endgame Crimes and Punishments (2020), is aimed at strong tournament players (1900-2300 Elo) and young upstarts.

Specifically, this book covers the following endings: rook versus minor piece (chapter 1), rook versus minor piece pair (chapter 2), rook and minor piece versus rook and minor piece, rook and minor piece versus rook, rook and minor piece versus two minor pieces, rook and minor piece versus a pair of rook, and rook and minor piece versus queen (all in chapter 3).

The principles of material arrangement applied to this book are largely consistent with those adopted for the author's previously published books. He has selected examples only of games played on the board and in which at least one of the players is a grandmaster. Six of the matches included were played by world champion Magnus Carlsen. Other examples come from games of great players such as former world champions Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik and Vishy Anand, as well as Ian Nepomniachtchi, Ding Liren, Hikaru Nakamura, Sam Shankland, Jan-Krzysztof Duda, Judit Polgar, Gata Kamsky, Daniil Dubov. and others. Eight of the 101 examples in this book come from the author's own entries.

The endings have been selected so that a person studying the book can see the critical moments of the game, such as a single mistake or a series of mistakes that led to a loss or when one side missed a winning move. Before examining the correct continuation, it is recommended that the reader try to solve it from the initial diagram.