Not sure where to file this post, it’s probably most fitting to call it a completed 2011 new year’s resolution. In any case, the quest to finish the Dvoretsky endgame manual has finally come to a close. After close to 1,200 days I finally read the final page and reviewed the last exercise on December 30th.
Without a doubt, I’m sure that many a stronger player has read the book and digested the material much more quickly than I. The issue was that somewhere between 2008 and 2011, I lost the initial head of steam that propelled me through the early chapters.
At some point it became a test of my resolve to finish things that I have started. Since there was no way I was going to carry this into 2012, I brought the book with me on our family vacation to Aruba this year and finished just in time.
As noted in previous reviews of the book, the material is very good and thoroughly covers almost everything a person should know about endgames. That said, now that I have completed it, I would only recommend the book for players with ratings of 1650 and above.
- Image via Wikipedia
Funnily enough, over the summer I received a gift of Silman’s Complete Endgame Course from a close relative! Though I haven’t the strength to start a new endgame book just yet, I can say that this work takes a different approach and organizes material based on player strength in order to help students get the most out of the material.
