100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player Improved and Expanded by Jesus de la Villa

100 Endgames You Must Know: Vital Lessons for Every Chess Player Improved and Expanded  by Jesus de la Villa

First published in 2008 by New In Chess, "100 Endgames You Must Know" by Grandmaster Jesus de la Villa has rapidly become the modern standard for endgame study.

While Jeremy Silman’s course is an expansive, conversational narrative that scales by rating, De la Villa takes a more clinical, high-efficiency approach. He operates on the "Pareto Principle" of chess: 80% of your results come from 20% of your knowledge. This book identifies the 100 specific theoretical positions that appear most frequently in tournament play and provides the definitive "manual" for solving them.

The Core Philosophy: Theoretical Memorization

De la Villa argues that you cannot simply "figure out" a complex endgame at the board when you have only 30 seconds left on your clock. You either know the winning (or drawing) maneuver beforehand, or you will fail.

The book is designed to turn these 100 positions into automatic weapons. By mastering the "key squares" and precise piece maneuvers within these pages, you remove the need for stressful calculation in time scrambles, allowing you to play with the mechanical accuracy of a computer.