Here are 62 masterly demonstrations of the basic strategies of winning at chess, compiled and annotated by one of the game's most admired and respected writers. Each game offers a classic example of a fundamental problem and its best resolution, described and diagrammed in the clearest possible manner for players of every level of skill.
As Irving Chernev observes in the Introduction, "Who will doubt the tremendous power exerted by a Rook posted on the seventh rank after seeing Capablanca's delightfully clear-cut demonstration in Game No. 1 against Tartakower? And who will not...

Chess endings have an immediacy lacking in chess endgame or chess problems: endings are not theoretical or composed, but actual board positions, the point in every game when the superfluous falls away, leaving only the essential. Jose Raul Capablanca (1888-1942) had no need for isolated artistic theory or compositions -- he composed and created chess art as he played. All of his genius -- intuitive, tactical, strategic, logical -- all of his art shines clearest in his endings, as he himself was proud to declare, advising others to study them carefully. "In order to improve your game," he...

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