Endgame Lesson Review: King and Pawn

If you're like me, you take a look at your stats and ask yourself "Why am I bad at chess?" My stats tell me that I lose 60% of the time when I enter into an endgame. A lot of times when I review those matches, I make a blunder which costs a win. I could be ahead two pawns but still end up losing. So, to fix this problem, I've started doing some endgame Lessons and drills. Here's a review. 

King and Pawn Endgame. 

Is the above position winning or losing for white? If white moves the rook, then the game's likely to end in a draw. If Rxf6, then there's a chance. Below is the sacred "T" or the most important squares which decides whether the pawn can promote or not.

If black controls the squares in the top of the T, then you will not be able to promote. If our king controls those squares, then after some finagling, we can promote. The trick is to take control of the most important squares that black's king cannot reach before us. We have two ways of trying to reach those squares, rush forward or go around the B file. Both paths to the squares we need to control take 4 moves, but Black will not be able to take control of B5 before us. Here's why: 

Now we're in direct opposition to Black's King. Regardless, Black's King has to sidestep. They have to make a legal move unless they can't (where we accidentally cause a stalemate for example). When Black's King moves, we move the other way to maintain control of those three squares that are part of the "T." Now we have to be careful of Black's King, we can easily mess this up. If Black's king moves to attack our pawn, then we bring our pawn up as well, preferably with check opportunities. The whole name of the game is to control those three squares that are part of the T. 

In the above example, I've inserted a seperate line for if black thinks he can just sit on the pawn's promotion square (spoiler, they can't). Well, that's fine and dandy for pawns in the center of the board, but what about the below situation? 

Let's say Black's rook takes our poor castle on b5 (Rxb5). How do we best promote here? Do we Kxb5 or axb5? Wait, what about the sacred "T" does it still apply for a rook's pawn? (a/h file). Well, here's what'll happen if you take back with the king. FYI we have no T now: 

The most important squares to control on a rook's pawn are the last two on the nearby file. They are generally difficult to control with just a king on the other side of the board. 

So what's the ultimate outcome if we take with the king?

As you can see from the analysis above, a draw. Less a blunder from black, we've given away a potential W. What happens if we had taken with our pawn instead? 

As you can see we've got our venerable "T" squares again we have to control. Once again we go around our pawn to take control of the square the black king can't reach. In the above example, black's inviting us to accidentally stalemate the game by putting his king in the corner. Don't stalemate and promote. I hope you like the above lesson review! If you want something more in depth, check out a lesson from somebody who knows better than I do!