Endgames

As requested earlier, I decided to try posting helpful bits to start with the forums, and endgames was the first request.

Before I start, I would like to preface this by saying I am not a master of the game. I am currently putting in a lot of time, studying chess, while I am not working 40 hours a week, and I think something has semi clicked recently (though what it is I am not sure), but I am only an intermediate player, so if I do make a grave, or even minor error in my posts, I apologize, and look forward to learning as well.

Okay... so end games. I will start with the most common. King pawn vs king. If you are the one up a pawn, and are able to trade everything off, then by all means, you should be able to win, given that you are able to defend the pawn before the opponent can take it, and that said pawn is not on the A or H file. If said pawn is on the A or H file, and the opponents king bars the way to promotion, then it will be a draw.

However on any other square, you should be able to force a promotion with this set up.

Thanks. I knew about supporting he pawn to promote but I also recall a bit of a trick to it and will study it a bit more. I seem to recall something about getting the king in front of the pawn for one reason or another but I can't remember and will ask one of my kind mentors.

I learned rook and king versus king slightly differently. Dan Heisman taught me and a few of my mentors continued the rook and king versus king by "making the box smaller" although I recall Dan telling me there was more than one way to do this.

Thank you for posting.

Yes I have an entire serise on pawn endgames in the Worldwide Learning Center, but here is the most basic way to win an pawn and king endgame vas a king endgame>

First I will point out that Frankukai was right all. And Cris, getting your king ahead of the pawn can make it much easier, I was just showing the classical way minus the mis-step.

As for the rook ending, I have found many people use the line by line more when I make them force it, so I figured it might be easier for people to remember when it comes to applying in their own games, however the box method is faster at pushing people away from the center of the board. So either way does work as long as you know the premise well :)

as you can see. this position is lost for black if white plays perfictly. however if white blunders then black still has a chance

this is what I posted....

I must have misposted... I actually meant to put e4 right away...