Think Pawn Endgames Are Simple? THINK AGAIN!

"Okay,take a look at this position.

Seems simple,right?

• White's pawn on c6 is basically lost - the black king on a6 can just walk over anytime and grab it.
• Now take a look at the kingside, if white tries and goes on to capture the g7 pawn other two pawns will be pushed and promoted to a Queen or a Rook and basically  White can get ready to give a horrible smile to the opponent and extend the hand for a resignation.

WAIT WAIT !!

THE GAME IS NOT OVER YET!!

So, We are going to see an extraordinary Endgame study composed by Richard Reti in 1921.

This is a mesmerizing position and WHITE can actually DRAW the Position!!

Let us do a detailed Analysis of this endgame study -

Here it is White to move and we Play Kg6 ( Obviously pawn to c7 does not make any sense here)

Black's most logical respond would be kb6

White Plays Kxg7  

and now if kxc6 , kxf6 would easily draw for white ( Kxf6 h5, kg5 h4, kxh4)

So, Black's best option would be to push one of the pawn, Let us say  pawn to h5 then

kxf6  h5, and it still looks black is completely winning , white can not stop the h pawn and black king on b6 is shouldering the white pawn..

However, white can still draw this position

the move is ke5 !!! 

The threat is to come back and stop the h pawn and at the same time white king threatens to support the c pawn.

black must push the h pawn, h3 

white plays kd6 , supporting the c pawn and after

h2, c7 h8=Q, and white also gets a Queen.

and it is a clear draw. 

1/2 -1/2

• Let's see if Black tries something different,

pawn to h5 now 

And if white plays the most obvious kxh5, white looses on the spot because of kb6 (..kb6 , kg6 kxc6.. and basically every move is lost here for white)

so kxh5 is not the move

Rather white plays Kxg7 (looks dangerous) 

• Let us see  if black pushes Pawn to h4 ,

White can still draw the position,

kxf6 h3 , ke6 h2 , c7 h8=Q, and we also get a queen c8=Q but with a check, if it would not be a check then Qh3+ would be game over for white.

And one last trick for black, let's see that one also,

And here if you capture the f5 pawn, it will again be a terrible loss due to ( ..kb6 , kg6 kx6, kf5 kd5, kf4 ke6...) and it is preety simple now black king will shoulder these pawns and march forward and white can never the touch the g7 pawn because h pawn will be pushed.

So, Here we will have to capture the g7 pawn still.

kxg7 f4, kf6 f3, ke6 f2, c7 kb7 kd7... and both will get a queen but white will get the queen with a check.

So it should be a theoretical DRAW.

And there are some variations left which are self explanatory if you understood the core idea.

The basic idea is white's king can combine and attack on one of the pawns marching down the board with going over to assist the c pawn, and that way all variations lead to a draw.