The Israeli-American chess composer Gady Costeff has put together a very nice collection of endgame studies to mark the 100th anniversary of the World Chess Federation.
The collection follows the history of FIDE, beginning with the year 1924, and provides a comprehensive insight into the infinitely deep world of endgames in 101 exercises on 112 pages. Each study is by a different author.
The studies offer astonishing mates, astonishing sacrificial turns, witty prophylactic moves, quite humorous piece maneuvers and many surprising twists.
In its chronological sequence, the retrospective also shows how authors and composers have taken up ideas from their predecessors, varied them and developed them further.
Gady Costeff has put together a really nice little book. A separate page has been provided for each study. You can follow the progress of the solution in at least three diagrams even without a visual chessboard. In order to keep the solutions clear (and to accommodate the solutions on one page), Gady Costeff has cut off some not so essential minor variations.
Sample page
Not only the studies and solutions are amazing, but the price is also astonishing. The beautiful booklet is available for just 8 euros (plus postage):
The book can be ordered from Peter Gvozdjak's fidealbum e-shop, where study lovers can find many more beautiful study collections.
Gady Costeff is a marketing analyst by profession and, together with Lewis Stiller, he developed the free Chess Chess Query Language (CQL) , which uses the SCID code from Shane Hudson.
