Hi I was just wondering which of these endgame books is better: Learn from the Legends: Chess Champions at Their Best by Mihail Marin or Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master by Jeremy Silman. I want an endgame book and have been recommended both these books but would like to know which is better. Thanks in advance.

both books are great, however depending upon what you wish to improve in, will result in a final decision. Personally, I believe that one of the most important parts of the game is the endgame. Winning endgames are the result of a tireless battle in order to gain a small advantage in the endgame (most of the time the small advantage results in a win). If you cannot see the winning endgame, then all the hard work goes to waste. My first tournament match was against a close friend, the person who got me playing tournament regularly (he was also better then me). After a long game where we arrived to a position which seemed drawish (he had a bad bishop, i had no minor pieces but had pawn majority on both sides of the board), he agreed to a draw due to time pressure. The next day i sent him a variation (the only variation, which was a 10 move zugzwang) that resulted in a win. he was sore. (if yould like to see the game i do have it posted on the forums, send me a message and ill give you the web address. <sorry for the lengthy response>

Ah no, thanks Bergmami, yout reply is appreciated. Yeah I'll have a look at that game sure. Also you say it depends on what you want to improve on, but what does each book cover, and what are the real differences between them. Thanks!

What about Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual?

Yeah I know that's supposed to be good, but it's supposed to be quite complicated and I've heard that you shoudln't touch it until you're around 2100-2200

Ok, that's new to me. I recently bought the kindle edition and it looks great to me, but I have to admit that I just started reading. Nonetheless I do not feel that Dvoretsky's explanations are beyond my understanding.

Ok thanks, that's good to know, I'm sure there's a lot of stuff in there that would be useful to me, I did hear it off a couple people though that it's supposed to be complicated, admittedly though I have heard off one or two other people that it's not too bad as well so I'm not sure to be honest!

I'd say get Learn from the Legends. I have Silmans bookand its quite good, but Ryan Griffiths told me Marins book is really good. I haven't seen it though.

Marin is the best chess writer currently, by a big margin.

Ok thanks Conor and pfren, and yeah I was talking to Ryan, he was the one who mentioned the Marin book to me, although he said it's probably better to read the Silman one first.

Silman's book IS great. And I don't care if you just learned chess yesterday, or you're Viswanathan Anand, it literally has something in it for everybody!

But I have 2 problems for this book. One is the price. 25 dollars is a lot for a chess book.

The second problem is , because it contains information for playhers of such varying levels, most of it doesn't apply to me. Out of the $25 I spent, I found I only got maybe $5 worth of instruction. The other $20 I spent was for lessons geared to players either much weaker, or much stronger than I.

But for what I did find useful, I learned a lot. Silman has a way of taking seemingly complex ideas, and presenting it in easy-to-understand "Fisher-Price English." He really is a joy to read.

Besides paying it out of my own pocket?

Lol

Other than that, I found roughly 1/5th of the book instrucktive. One fifth of 25 is... uhhh... let me think..... 5! Thats right! I knew that!

And that's how its done!

The Marin Book is more expensive though 

DO you know if I could find a book cheaper than 31 bucks?

Learn from the Legends by Mihail Marin

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233457/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review500.pdf

http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_misc/qc_learn_from_the_legends.asp?KATID=BO

Silman's Complete Endgame Course by Jeremy Silman

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708103149/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review594.pdf

http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/theres-an-end-to-it-all

Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual by Mark Dvoretsky

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233815/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review399.pdf

http://theweekinchess.com/john-watson-reviews/the-end-game-comes-before-we-know-it

Some suggestions are in this thread. One might also consider:

Fundamental Chess Endings by Müller and Lamprecht.

http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_endgame/ga_fundamental_chess_endings.asp?KATID=BO&ProductID=104&PUBID=GA&AUTID=69&BUYID=&ID=BO-Endgame