Serawan's book on winning endgames is a good start.
How to Improve at Endgames
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There are few course i would like recommend you. There are theories and there are also practical way. What I mean by theories course, GM/IM/FM teaches endgame theories like Rook Endgames, Pawn Endgames and etc which clearly shown in Chessbase video by GM Karsten Muller. I highly recommend his DVDs. Truely amazing stuff for chess player who would like to be solid in endgame. You could also by his Fundemental of chess endgame by Karsten Muller,: http://goo.gl/bvHgkM and some books by John Nunn.
Where course Endgame Expert by GM Igor : http://goo.gl/PWPzfR, teaches bit different , which is practical way of winning endgame. Not much theories in the course. His method of teaching is how to be better in endgame and how to win it. choose which one is better for you. In my opinon, both are great course to have.
Bump. I remember having this problem about 4 months ago. I was really bad at endgames so spent a lot of time studying them. Like you mention, a lot of this studying starts off with King and Pawn endgame basics (If you don't know what's winning/losing how can you know when and when not to trade) and then kind of works up from there. For quite a while I was good at almost all the rook and one pawn versus rook scenarios, but when it got more complex I had trouble. Some of these like R vs R+N draw, and the RvR+P I did with computer and/or tablebases for practice. Sometimes knowing how to play it alone isn't enough unless you've practiced it.
Other than that, just seeing positions arise in games helped tremendously. Now that I had exposure to all the basic ideas I just needed practice seeing and playing them in real games. A lot of the ideas are kind of the same. Dzinzi has some nice endgame lectures about strategically how to place rooks when there are passed pawns, etc. So I'd definitely check out his videos if you haven't yet.
Dec 13, 2014
0
#5
A nice rook ending lecture by GM Ian Rogers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXCaaVaZ1aM&list=UUJ7Ogp96NhyVMx6ZoRg8AfA
Hi, guys. I had a couple games today at my local chess club, and I'm glad to say I did quite well. However, most of my success was not due to any spectacular play by me but rather my opponents not finding the right moves late in the game. In one of these games, I threw away a rook-and-pawn endgame where I should have had a small advantage and went down a pawn. I thought I had dug myself into a hole when my opponent blundered one back and ended up losing anyway. In another, I had an advantage the whole game but I didn't pay attention to the minor pieces until late, when it dawned on me that my opponent had great drawing chances because of our bishops of opposite color! I won when my opponent made a dangerous king move allowing me to harrass him to gain tempo to push my pawn for the win.
I am rated U.S.C.F. 1050, and I have been doing well at my chess club against people with ratings up to 600 points above mine. However, in order to get my U.S.C.F. rating up, I'm going to have to fix these endgame problems because in longer games the opponents can find the right moves and win. I feel that my opening knowledge is superior to that of most players at my level (to the point where I think I study openings too much, perhaps to the detriment of other aspects of the game) and my early middlegame planning is okay. However, late in the middlegame and in the endgame I make a lot of mistakes and these can easily let my opponents back into chess games. I am a d4 player and this leads to a lot of long, drawn-out positional battles which often lead directly to endgames. I want to get to a point where my endgame skills are as good as my opening skills so that I can open and close a game well.
I own Jeremy Silman's endgame book and I have read the book up to about the Class C-B stuff, even though I am currently Class E. The problem is that my endgame issues come either earlier, when the middlegame is leading into the endgame, or in positions that are more complicated and less straightforward than the ones he gives. I often have problems finding the right strategy in endgames and determining how, positionally, I can win the game.
Are there any players out there who can give me some advice about how to play endgames better? I find that I struggle, for instance, in rook endgames where both sides have one or two rooks and a couple pawns each. I often make wrong moves that give my opponent more play than he should have. I want to stop doing this. Thanks, guys.