This $3.00 endgame book is better than Fundamental Chess ENdings

I've been going through the first chapter of pawn endings of the highly regarded Fundamental Chess Endings by Lamprecht/muller. It's good, but a bit over my head.

I was kind of shocked to come across this $3.00 ebook - it's actually better than FCE for lower class players like myself. 

Essential Endgames - Craig Suveg ($3.00 on google play, or $3.90ish on Kindle)

Does an outstanding job on the 2p vs p endgames, including "Bird's Color Rule". FCE has NOTHING on this critical topic - I suspect the FCE authors put all that stuff in their dedicated pawn endgames book, but it seems like a huge, almost unforgivable deficit to leave detailed instruction how how to win these super common 2p vs p endgames out of a book called "FUNDAMENTAL chess endings."

It only took me this morning to enter all the pawn positions from Suveg's book into my computer - it starts easy, but gets tricky (but still fundamental) quickly. I also looked at the rook endgames stuff, and it's totally legit (I have the Starting Out: Rook Endgames book by Everyman chess which is excellent, and Suveg's book more clearly explains some of the topics.)

It's true, I've been teaching chess for more than 25 years and I don't know what Bird's color rule is. 

Please give us an example of this rule.

Interestingly, FIDE has no record of a "Craig Suveg" in their database. USCF has a Craig Suveg, who is rated 1670 after 17 games (a provisional rating). He last played in a tournament in 1998.

He made have made up "bird's color rule", but I like it!

Nowhere in FCE do they explain remotely how to win this sort of extremely common endgame. I actually disagree that FCE tries to be a 'reference' book - it doesn't seem to read like a reference book, but more tries to be a learning book rather than an all-encompassing reference book.

Dvoretsky is definitely on my hit list, but most of the reviews suggest it's over my head right now.

You can find a discussion of this ending in Yusupov's book Chess Evolution: The Fundamentals (page 36). He makes no reference to "Bird's Color Rule" that I can see. But it is true that FCE doesn't cover it.

Yeah, I thinks its a big omission for a fundamentals book

Come on, it's not that common an endgame at all.

I wasn't going to point that out, hicetnunc. I think most players know that it's uncommon. Yusupov devotes a couple pages to it, so I'm guessing that Carsten and Muller made a conscious decision to lump it in with other similar endgames simply saying that it's "interesting". Dvoretsky deals with it in slightly more than three columns. But, he doesn't mention "Bird's color rule" either. In fact, he doesn't mention the rule regarding K placement at all. Dvoretsky deals with it in terms of corresponding squares. 

And that makes sense! I don't know that you need to memorize another rule if you can work it out using a good knowledge of corresponding squares anyway.

While it's not 'common', it's definitely much more 'common' that most of the examples shown in FCE, including the classic Reti shouldering example that's in like every textbook, but you'll never run into in your games. Yes, I know, the point is to illustrate shouldering, and not the exact position, but like it or not, you can illustrate the shouldering with many other game examples that aren't as extreme as the Reti one. 

This pawn endgame is actually something I've encountered in some form another for sure - it's a very practical example, in my opinion. g & h pawns are often the last stragglers to work with! 

If you can figure it out using corresponding square, more power to you, but for sure, the method illustrated in the example I posted is extremely clear, easy for even <1200s to understand, and avoids all the complexity of corresponding squares - you can definitely play this position FAST in blitz with these rules, without corresponding squares. 

As for the 'work it out over the board' - I'm sure strong enough players can indeed calculate out most of these fundamental endgames de novo, without having to have seen it before in a book or knowing any particular rules. Alas, I'm not one of them, and that's the entire reason I'm reading endgame books.

For those in the know, it's like asking someone to calculate Bahr's line RP endgames quickly for wins vs draws. With the rule, it's nearly instant. Without the rule, it can be a very long calculation.

Well, I guess it's something personal, but the awesomeness of Reti's example makes it difficult to forget !

And yes, I agree with you : Reti's example is meant to illustrate the advantages of the diagonal movement of the king (as fast as the straight line + shouldering), which applies to a lot of positions. I'm not sure how the bird's color rule can be extrapolated to other positions than the one at hand, but maybe I'm wrong as I'm not familiar with this rule.

As for solving the position at hand, I don't know how to do it using corresponding squares but "king in front of pawn/key squares" + "keep reserve tempo" + knowledge of the winning position with pawn on the 6th + calculation should give you a decent shot as well ?!

But back to the bird's color rule : honest question : can you use it if you move the position one column to the left for example ?

You guys are getting all hung up over some silly 'quasi-named rule' that he probably made up. 

Ignore the name of the rule, and the methodology he shows how to win the position, is much clearly than anything in FCE regarding 2p vs p positions, let alone the trickier RP situation. Even his Bahr's rule section is superior to the meagre 1-pager in FCE, which happens to also conveniently mention only in ONE word that it only applies to a FAR passed pawn, not close ones (which makes a HUGE difference.) 

FWIW, I don't recommend FCE to anyone, but I do recommend DEM quite a bit.

Using all those acronyms made me feel younger!

I've seen that ending before.  I think it's in Pandolfini's book.

Ok, I tried to answer my own question whether this rule was still valid when shifting the position one column to the left. Well it is, though in that case, it's not necessary as white can win by outflanking.

So this is a valid rule, but with only a rather limited practical application.

Nevertheless, I agree with the OP that chess writers who manage to exlain things in a clear and simple way should be praised : this is not so common and worthwhile.

THe position is simple enough that you can calculate it out yourself pretty easily and see it works. Or fire up Stockfish and it'll do the work for you to confirm. 

Again, you're getting hung up on some 'rule' that even I agree he probably made up. EIther, way, as long as the rule works and is clearly understood, I'm all for it. 

I would say that I run into this sort of endgame at least as often as running into pawn positions where Bahr's line endgame rule applies (which is not that often), so I'm ok with having a shortcut rule to make things clearer in the frenzy of a blitz endgame.

I'm all for reading books by the 'best', but only if it is at the level where I can absorb it, and quickly. FCE isn't a bad book, but it's becoming pretty clear that it's definitely a very advanced 'Fundamentals' book - like 1800, or even 2000 as a candidate for 'learning fundamentals.' 

This other book for $3.00 actually IS a fundamentals chess book for us mortal class-players, in contrast. 

7. . . .Kg8

White's KRP needs to move to match the color of the square Black's King is on , white, g8.

8. Ph3.

If say it was. 7. . . . Kh8, then 8. Ph4 is needed to match the dark square.

Correct?

De la Villa mentions this rule in his book '100 Endgames You Must Know', which I highly recommend. Simply stated, if you are lazy or suffer from time pressure, this rule can guarantee that you don't need to count by recalling that in a 2 v 1 endgame (g and h v h) after getting your king to h6, the 2 pawns should be kept on the same colour as the square of the opponent's king. That way when you push the g pawn you will get the opposition. 

jengaias wrote:

hicetnunc wrote:

Ok, I tried to answer my own question whether this rule was still valid when shifting the position one column to the left. Well it is, though in that case, it's not necessary as white can win by outflanking.

So this is a valid rule, but with only a rather limited practical application.

Nevertheless, I agree with the OP that chess writers who manage to exlain things in a clear and simple way should be praised : this is not so common and worthwhile.

It is possible that this guy's rule actually has gaps or holes which is impossible for a beginner to spot.There has to be a reason why his "color rule" hasn't been widely accepted.It's impossible to say without studying the book.

:::

It's also possible that other authors are just repeating how they were taught and this Craig guy discovered it on his own.