An introduction gives an overview on the contents and demonstrates that we lose points in every local endgame by evaluating it wrongly when confusing gote with sente or misjudging for how long we should continue local play. The book presumes fluent application of the basics of modern endgame theory: the count (positional value) and move value (value of a move) of a local gote or sente endgame and its followers (follow-up positions); the gain of every individual move (the value of how much a player's move shifts counts in his favour); negative numbers favouring White. Although readers of Volume 2 are familiar with these basics, Endgame 3 - Accurate Local Evaluation can be read independently because the chapter Basics summarises them. The book concludes with an appendix, which lists keywords and the conventions for diagrams and variables. The major contents is presented in the following three parts:
- The chapters 'Gote, Sente and Short Sequences' and 'Gote and Sente Options' evaluate local endgames with short sequences consisting of one or two plays worth playing successively. The former studies local endgames in which a player starts a gote sequence, whose continuation results in a sente sequence. The latter studies local endgames in which one player chooses either his gote option starting a gote sequence or his sente option starting a sente sequence. Both kinds of local endgames are evaluated
- The intermediate chapter 'Local Sequences and Endgames' briefly introduces privileges, ko and the global positional context, discusses double sente, introduces long sequences consisting of at least 3 plays, and provides simplifications. We learn that, usually, local double sente does not exist, its traditional evaluation has had little meaning, and how to evaluate and play a perceived double sente in the global context: we do not always need accurate evaluation as a local gote with follow-ups but can often apply principles to evaluate like a ko exchange. Long sequences are introduced by first examples, calculation of their values, classifications of the types of sequences and local endgames, and the properties of long sequences worth playing successively (called 'traversal sequences'). Simplifications are very fast tools, with which we can sometimes circumvent detailed methods.
- The next two chapters explain ordinary or fast evaluation of long sequences. Both major kinds of evaluation determine the count and move value of an initial local endgame. Ordinary evaluation also determines the gains of the sequences' plays to clarify the correct moments of interrupting local play and playing elsewhere, and assesses whether ko threats should be preserved. Fast evaluation skips such details but applies sophisticated means to only determine the initial values.
