http://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive...

Not that I'm going to buy a new copy anytime soon.

To quell any doubt, here is the catalog record from the Cleveland Public Library, clearly specifying 5 volumes.

http://cpl.bibliocommons.com/item/s...

Dec-27-13
Premium Chessgames Member Benzol: I don't understand this part of his bio <he co-edited a four-volume anthology on the endgame, Shakhmatnye okonchaniya, which was revised in 1980-84 and translated as a four or five volume work titled Comprehensive Chess Endings (the existence of a fifth volume is in doubt).>. The Wikipedia article in the notes lists 5 volumes in the Comprehensive Chess Endings series where the ISBN numbers are also given. Averbakhs' book of his own selected games published in 1998 also says it's a 5 volume series. So did the fifth volume fail to appear or what?>

Unfortunately, I just found out that what I've written wasn't entirely accurate, to put it mildly.

Actually, both the original Russian and English edition come in five volumes, the existence of which is not in doubt.

It was for publication in German that the volume on rook endings was split, making this a series of six books.

Anyway, to make up for the confusion caused, these are the Averbakh books as referenced in 'Fundamental Chess Endings':

Volume 1: bishop endings, knight endings (with Chekhover)

Volume 2: bishop against knight, rook against minor piece

Volume 3: queen endings, queen against rook (V.Khenkin), queen against minor piece (with Chekhover)

Volume 4: pawn endings (with Maizelis)

"Yuri Averbakh, who in the fullness of time became one of the Soviet Union's most distinguished grandmasters of chess, missed volunteering by a series of fortunate accidents which probably saved his life. A precocious child, he entered the Bauman Higher Technical Institute in 1939 at the young age of seventeen. He was therefore in the midst of his studies and exempt from immediate call-up when the war began. Instead of joining a volunteer division he was sent to work at a tank repair base outside Moscow. When the Germans broke the Russian front outside Moscow in mid-October, Shcherbakov issued a panic call for volunteers for a new wave of militia units. There was no avoiding the call this time. Averbakh turned up in the most suitable civilian clothes he had. The recruiting sergeant took one look at his light summer boots and told him to buy something more suitable. He went round all the shops, but no one had anything to fit his unusually large feet. So once again he missed the war."

1. Yuri Averbakh (February 8, 1922), Russia
2. Mark Taimanov (February 7, 1926), Russia
3. Pal Benko (July 14, 1928), USA
4. Arthur Bisguier (October 8, 1929), USA
5. Aleksandar Matanovic (May 23, 1930), Serbia
6. Nikolai Krogius (July 22, 1930), Russia
7. Viktor Korchnoi (March 23, 1931), Switzerland
8. Anatoly Lein (March 28, 1931), USA
9. Arturo Pomar Salamanca (September 1, 1931), Spain
10. Juraj Nikolac (April 22, 1932), Croatia>