Best way to practice endgames ?

Hello chessers,

what would be the best way to practice endgames ? Taking some random games from this site and then replaying the endgames ? Are there specific applications for this ? Books are not so good due to the lack of time I have for reading and dealing with them.

Any suggestions would be fine.

I play correspondence (Email with some Russian friends),... the games often go into the endgame,...

You get a feel for what is really right and what is really wrong,..

But take a simple book like Averbakh's Basic Knowledge or Keres Practical Endgame; KNOW it.  The latter was World Class,... I do not know if you can find the English version of his book. 

But start with Pawn endgames and KNOW how to mate in 9-10 moves with a Q+K vs K; 

Set the board up, put the position in the computer and try to win or draw the position.  The computers now adays have 5 or 6 piece endgame dbanks so you can get real good practise.  But the more complex endgames need study and that can only be arrived at with longer games (e.g. use the online game function here). 

One book that is really useful is Sherevshevsky's Endgame Strategy,... A newer version of Practical Endgame (Keres) does not exist he died in 1975.  But de Villa's book 3rd edition is an excellent start.  A bit weak on the pawn endgames, strong on Q vs. c/f pawn, & Rook Endgames. 

Anyway, short question long answer,..

hope this was helpful

Playing games and analysing your endgame play.

Studying technical positions.

Setting up winning positions against a strong computer.

Basically you want to improve 1. Your knowledge of endgame theory and principles. 2. Your application of this.

chesstempo has an endgame trainer, but you can only do 3 problems a day as a non member.

Pawn endgames is a great place to start. Even Wikipedia is pretty good.

Find a strong player or someone very good to be your sparring partner and play them out against him or her either on the site or at a chess club with a club with a clock that's better than playing against a computer.

    I read about this method a little while back. Take the championship games played by Lasker, and Tal, and etc, and plug them into a computer, to see what other possible outcomes could have come about.

Thanx to you all for great hints !!!