Pawn Endgames - Easy to Hard (with puzzles and analysis)

Hello and welcome to another blog!

This blog features seven different pawn endgames from my own games. They start easier, but get harder as they go. Hopefully, these endgames serve as a learning purpose for you!

Endgame #1

The first endgame is a simple endgame which shows the importance of the opposition and controlling the queening square of the pawn. It also illustrates how it is important not to advance a pawn too much in a king + pawn vs king endgame as it becomes harder to win with doing that:

Endgame #2

The second endgame is also fairly simple and demonstrates the importance of having a pawn majority and the ability to create a passed pawn as the material is even, but white has doubled pawns, and so black wins the endgame due to having a pawn majority on the queenside and a passed pawn:

Endgame #3

This endgame features both sides trying to promote pawns, but black can win the endgame as in order to have a passed pawn for white, white must get the king involved, while black does not due to the extra pawn

Endgame #4

While this endgame did come from one of my own games, the game was ended by resignation without playing through the endgame. 

Please note that for the above endgame, h4 also works, but g5 is better

Endgame #5

This endgame features the importance of the opposition in pawn endgames and also the importance of using distraction in order to win. Material was even, but after white blundered, black was able to use these concepts to win the game:

Endgame #6

In this endgame, black should use the concepts of pawn breaks and calculation in order to convert the endgame. In the actual game, I was playing as black and I made a blunder with 40. Kd5 which made the game drawn, so instead, we will look at the winning line:

Endgame #7

In this endgame, I was playing as white and I lost after some mistakes in a complicated endgame that required a lot of calculation. There was one idea for white that was the best idea, but the idea was not seen in the endgame and with each move that white had an opportunity to play e4 and didn't, white's advantage slipped away:

Through these 7 endgame examples from easy to hard, I hope that you have all learned something from it as well as enjoyed going through the analysis and different variations on the endgames. I certainly have. It is important to remember the endgame principles such as opposition, distraction, passed pawns, pawn breaks, taking away your opponent's moves in order to win, and more as well as having good calculation skills. If you practice these, you should greatly improve your endgame.

Thanks for reading!