Endgame: Knight vs Pawn

Well done. Quite impressive if you haven't studied the endgame before.

Well it's not a very hard endgame, so you're not going to get anything much harder I'm afraid.

Plenty of harder studies, but off topic. If you throw in some extra pieces I like this one.

Should take you a little longer.

Or if that's too easy try this one:

Well done again, but how do you force the capture of the bishop?

Good one. Move three was tough. 

Good thread, too.

@Ziryab

Except when I looked at it I couldn't do it myself.

That is until I realised the board was upside down. I obviously hadn't got the hang of the set up pane when I posted it. (I've revised it to add coördinates, but still failing to get the board the right way up. Seems to come out upside down whether you tick "flip board" or not.)

At the beginning, I wasn't certain which way the pawn was moving. Then, I made a few errors in solving. The third move was the most difficult.

Grigoriev's studies are usually quite instructive.

Yes - I think the third move was the main point of the study.

(Hate this editor with a passion.)

Knowing how to draw these with the knight is important, but it's also important to know that you can win sometimes with just the knight if the pawn is on the edge file. Above is a simple 10 move sequence.

It's knight and king vs pawn and king

Kings are assumed. They never leave the board.

For @EndgameStudier if he still wants it. The first of the positions posted in #23 as a puzzle.

Solution stops if winning KNNvKP or KNNvKPP is reached, as I believe did Troitzky's who composed the puzzle. He published a comprehensive analysis of White wins in the former case in his supplement to Collection of Chess Studies 1937. 

The second is the record 549 move 7 man mate taken from the tablebases (accurate version no longer generally available since the Lomonosov tablebases were sabotaged). I think I'll decline to post that one as a puzzle. 

Thanks man! That's a cool puzzle, such a simple position yet there is that mating combination.

Similar, but a little simpler at 9 moves.

That one was actually a little trickier, there may have been other solutions, not sure.

First move is unique, but "dual" is an understatement from move 7 (five different finishes).

I think up to move 7, against most obstinate black defence (main line and first variation shown) White's choices are fixed. 

In 1832 that was the study of an endgame but not yet an endgame study by the rules and criteria developed in subsequent decades.

There is one interesting fact about Troitzky's position posted in #32 that I've only just realised from looking it up on the Syzygy site. It's rather surprising that White has a win, but, given that, not so surprising that that he has only one move that wins. What is surprising is that he also has only one move (Na5) that loses. In particular White has a draw after this sequence.

Also a quick pointer on how you can win with the pawn. Remember to advance in this position and not settle for a draw by capturing the knight (knight cannot mate a king and queen so don't need to worry about losing on time).