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“All King and Pawn Endgames are Confusing!”

By Steve | March 18, 2007

In Silman’s Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner to Master, part 8 is “Endgames for Masters.” In part 8 there’s a section called “All King and Pawn Endgames are Confusing!” In this chapter, Silman presents a bunch of examples that are intended to:

Act as a warning. [...] Don’t ever enter a King and pawn endgame unless you have no choice, or are sure that it leads to the desired result. - page 374

This caught my eye because it’s almost exactly the same thing Igor Foygel told me last summer. He urged me to avoid unclear king and pawn endgames.

Here’s a case where I decided to simplify into a king-and-pawn endgame, giving back material in the process, because I felt the winning plan was clear and easy to execute. (It’s from a recent GameKnot game, played at 2 days per move.)

5k2/1p3pp1/p3p3/7p/2P3P1/1r2N2P/4KP2/8
Black to move

Black is up the exchange, plus two extra pawns. I’m sure there are lots of winning plans here. But I was thinking “OK, how can I blow it?” The only bad things I could see happening were walking into a knight fork, or letting White’s king penetrate and threaten a pawn breakthrough. I decided to eliminate the fork possibility completely by playing Rxe3+. I figured I could get my king to d6 fast enough to shut out White’s king. Then the plan is to push the a-pawn, forcing White’s king to go after it, and then White’s other pawns are goners.

(I didn’t get a chance to prove this plan, though, because my opponent didn’t respond within the time limit and forfeited the game.)

So what do you think, dear reader? Would you have been ready in this position to give back the exchange?

4 Responses to ““All King and Pawn Endgames are Confusing!””

  1. Blunderprone Says:
    March 18th, 2007 at 6:39 pm

    King position plays an important role. I would have done three things first. 1) simplify the king side pawns with hxg4 2) Next I would have improved my king position knowing as a rule of thumb to keep it off teh same color of my rook to avoid pesky Knight forks. Lastly I would have advanced the a-pawns as far as I could. Then and only then would I have given back the exchange. Simplifying the king side first neutralizes that side of the board. You still had a pawn majority on that side. Without the knight and rook, the outside passed pawn (on teh a-file) is a strategic weapon. You andvance it as far as possible expending White’s resources to defend it. It then allows you to go in on the opposite side. King position is important in this as well. So creating these dynamics or exploiting them first before exchanging R v N would have been my option.

  2. Steve Says:
    March 18th, 2007 at 8:49 pm

    Blunderprone - Thanks for your comments. I had planned to play hxg4 immediately after the exchange on e3, and then move my king to d6.

  3. DG Says:
    March 19th, 2007 at 11:10 am

    In this case the plan of transposing to a K+P ending is fine, e.g. 1…Rxe3+ 2.Kxe3 hxg4 3.hxg4 Ke7 4.Kd4 Kd6 and you’ll use the a-pawn to deflect White’s King while you win the c-pawn and/or create another passer on the Kingside.

  4. Steve Says:
    March 19th, 2007 at 11:22 am

    Thanks, DG.

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