Silman's endgame course is boring?

Oh, so we're in conspiracy territory now.

Ok, sure.

Grandmasters hate him, click here to see @tygxc's secret method to learn endgames fast!

That is absolutely not true.

I can tell you've never tried to learn an endgame from a tablebase.

My opinion is that every book on theoretical endgames is boring! What I find useful is to study books on complex endgames/endgame strategy and analyze alternate lines myself. Then when a theoretical endgame comes up I dont understand, it connects to something I'm in the middle of and is easier / less boring to study.

When I travel for work [much less these last few ears] I take a small set & book on theoretical endgames to study when I'm trapped like a rat in a hotel room with nothing else to do. Since 'boring' is relative this seemed to work best for me.

#22
I learned endgames from books. I later revisited these books with and endgame table base and I was shocked how many errors it contained. Not in some sideline, the evaluation of the diagram was erroneous.
Anyway, what is your advice to the original poster, apart from disliking mine?

Shereshevesky's book "Endgame Strategy" might be interesting to the OP.

There was also some book called... Endgame Handbook or something? Anyway it had 100 famous endgames (from actual GM games).

Silman's book is mostly technical positions, so maybe that's what made it boring. Learning from the strategic perspective, or from actual games (with players and history to add interest) might make it less boring for the OP.

But in general, endgames are considered to be boring. So maybe the OP should either suck it up (Silman's book is good, so stick with it), or move on to something more interesting (like tactics or strategy). For amateurs chess is supposed to be fun after all.

@tygxc: you said that you learned endgames from books. .. maybe that step is necessary?

@Supreme_Gamer_Girl -

It's not so much that Silman's Complete Endgames Course is boring so much as the study of endgames is not particularly exciting.  This is more often true for those who have not yet learned to appreciate the value of studying them (generally those on the lower end of the rating scale).  This attitude begins to shift once they discern that having embarked on the study of the endgame they are starting to win games that they otherwise would probably have lost.  It is at this point that they begin to appreciate endgame proficiency as a valuable weapon in their chess arsenal.  In fact, skilled endgame players will look for an opportunities to "liquidate" down to a winning endgame position...

Liquidation on the Chess Board New & Extended: Mastering the Transition into the Pawn Endgame by Joel Benjamin

Having said that....

Silman's Complete Endgame Course is an excellent introductory text, one which I highly recommend to improving chess amateurs.

100 Endgames You Must Know by Jesus de la Villa is also very good but IMO a somewhat more challenging read than Silman's Complete Endgame Course.  That is, de la Villa doesn't "spoon-feed" you to the extent that Silman does.

On the other end of the pedagogical spectrum, and also (IMO) a good introductory endgame text is...

Pandolfini's Endgame Course by Bruce Pandolfini.   I appreciate its succinct one-lesson-per-page format (especially attractive for those with short attention spans, and/or for the easily bored).  There are some typos in the book (a minor distraction IMO), but they have been identified and corrected the in following errata... 

http://www.glennwilson.com/chess/books/pec_errata.html#end37 

Recommending the tablebase is asinine.  That is like telling someone to learn history by reading the encyclopedia starting from A and reading straight through to Z.  Not practical, not feasible, and not very effective.

Silman's book is good.  "100 Endgames You Must Know" by Jesus de la Villa is also very good (and has both a workbook companion book as well as a Chessable course with video explanations by John Bartholomew).  Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual is the gold standard, but if you think Silman's book is boring, you will not like it.  "Practical Chess Endgames" by Paul Keres is an older book that may be more interesting.  John Nunn has a few endgame books ("Secrets of Pawnless Endings", "Secrets of Rook Endings", "Secrets of Minor-Piece Endings") that are excellent and many people like his writing style.  Yuri Averback's "Comprehensive Chess Endings" series is what masters often carried with them in the 1980s and 1990s to reference if the game was adjourned.  That said, it is a bit like an encyclopedia itself, so it would be only slightly better than trying to use the tablebases.  If you don't like Silman's book, I would try Keres' book first, as it contains many of the most commonly seen types of endgames, so it will be more practical than trying to piece things together (last I looked, it also happened to be the cheapest option as well).

What a dumb f-ing conversation. Machines are not teachers. You don't learn math from a calculator. End of.

Cool! So what are these books on complex endgames called?

That sums it up nicely

For someone who isn't at least a master, using a tablebase to work endgames it the dumbest idea I've heard though it's not the first time I've heard someone say it. That tablebase will give you a concrete answer, sure, but what are you going to do, memorize every given position? Or maybe, ya know, learn some general principles of the endgame - like the opposition, the rule of the square, two weaknesses, triangulation, shouldering, etc - that you can apply to any position? The choice is rather obvious.

#28
"you learned endgames from books. .. maybe that step is necessary?"
++ I had no alternative. I could not reinvent it all on my own like Capablanca did.
There were no table bases yet.
But many perceive endgame books as boring.
When I coached youngsters I used to set up an endgame I knew and then ask: draw, or win, or loss? When they said "white wins", then I took the black side and tried to draw and we played it out. If after some tries they changed their mind to "draw", then I took the white side and tried to win. That makes endgame study fun and not boring. 
I was limited to positions I knew.
Now the table base allows to do the same for any position with 7 men or less.

Ones [approximate titles] that I worked thru and liked: Chernev's 'Capablanca's greatest endings' [Chernev's best book IMO & a master class on how to win equal endgames],

Endgame strategy by Shereshevsky and Giddin's book 'Greatest endings'.    Right now I'm working thru Marin's 'Learn from legends' It's good but I think the 3 above are better.

I dont know your level -- if you are starting to study endings, I think it's good to begin with a thin book on basics like Averbakh, Endings, essential knowledge. It's 100ish pages and you'll know more than most USCF class A players at its end. After that, comes complex endgames. [Also, somehow it's easier to pick up and study a thin book than a thick tome.]  -Bill

I think Silman's Complete Endgame Course is one of the books that is not boring at all! I'm working through the book at the moment and it's always a joy to open the book and I could spend hours studying it. Other endgame books are giving more variations, but they don't explain the ideas and concepts as well as Silman does, and they let you figure out the patterns etc yourself. That means you must work even harder with other books. I don't think there excist any "easier to grasp" endgame books. 🙂 That's of course only my opinion, and people have different tastes, but I love the book

It is much better to study endgame books and after studying about 10 or 15 positions (or 50 positions depending on how good your memory is) check with endgame tables or stockfish (in positions of more pieces). Using computer tools to correct the errors in the books is a good idea, with the table base you have very long continuations that sometimes stop making sense.