Improving at King and pawn(s) endings

Info: my chess.com rapid score from my 15|10 games which I take seriously is 1117

I am currently working through the course in the endgames folder titled, “Pawn Endings: Beginner to Expert” I am 55% through the course and for the last few lessons I have really been struggling. I am consistently unable to make the pawn calculations. I think it would help to spend the next week or two just learning king and pawn endings before I continue to play the game. I have 3 questions.

1-Does that make sense to put such focus on mastering king and pawn endings before continuing to learn the game?

2-If I do decide to do this, is there any good YouTube series or book that I should use?

3-Is there anywhere that I can find a complete list of types of king pawn(s) ending calculations. I basically want a curriculum for my week or 2 so I know that I cover everything. For example, there might be some book that says something to the effect of, “There are types of king/pawn endings. The first is two kings and one non-rook pawn. The second is two kings and one rook pawn. The third…”

Can you post an example of the type of position your having trouble with?

I can figure this one out, but it will take me a lot of time. I'm not just looking for a solution to this one example, I am looking to improve at all endgames where the board only has kings and pawn remaining.

King and pawn endings are not trivial. There are degrees of difficulty. Some positions are more difficult than crowded middle game positions because you have to find the right ideas as well as calculate well. King and pawn endings have defeated the very best players. So don't be too hard on yourself with some of them.

With ending generally, some are more common than others. So it is well to be aware of the common ones.

I suggest you get the book Secrets of Pawn Endings by Muller and Lamprecht. It has a page at the beginning titled Crash Course, for readers who want to acquire the most important basics as quickly as possible. It lists 32 key topics, covered in just 65 sections of the whole 280 page book. If you can put in three hours of concentrated study a day, you can probably complete the crash course within your two-week time limit.

The king is a vital piece in the endgame and even more so in king and pawn endings. It's important to keep it near the centre of the board where it can manouvre to both sides at will. Keeping the opposition with the opponent's king is important in some positions. Also look for pawn breaks, timing these right could determine the game's result. Precision and calculation are crucial here. Hope this helps. 

There is a major calculation shortcut here: That double connected pawn structure of White shown here is unbeatable under almost any conditions. Black can never capture either pawn: if he captures the rear pawn, the front pawn queens, and the front pawn is always protected so that can't be captured, either. Most commonly this formation occurs without the obstructing Black pawn, but the essence is the same, because Black's pawn can't do anything while blockaded there. Once you realize that, White's goal is pretty obvious.

One idea that might help is to learn a few common pawn formations like that. Look up the "trebuchet," for example: I ran into that formation when playing against my computer and lost before I finally saw that formation in a book. Another common formation in puzzles and in real games is the 3 pawns versus 3 pawns, facing off on the same files, all of them for each color aligned along a row and with one blank row between the two aligned phalanxes.

But be careful with your shortcuts. The same position shifted one file to the left is drawn. The same position shifted one rank down the board can only be won by forcing Black to capture the front pawn.

Don't beat yourself up about it, some king and pawn endgames masters can find difficult.

Once I was analyzing with 2 people who are at least 1600-1800 level and also a master (NM) - we tried to solve it for roughly 45 minutes TOGETHER.

We only managed to get the right ideas

(In the wrong order/applied in the wrong way) 

Then again, it was a puzzle from dvoretsky's endgame manual...

Still, I think it would be helpful for your chess to get better at this - be able to win a pawn up without much trouble - in K and P endings.

Positional themes and ideas to get those winning positions might be just as helpful though, so I recomend you get good enough at these to win +1 pawn in almost all cases (in K+P endings) and also enough to know some other ideas such as: Outside passed pawn often means victory in K+P endings (Use it to distract the opponents king and grab the other pawns) etc.

Hope this helps! - logozar

Silman's endgame manual should be helpful for your level (in my opinion).

For the ambitious player (probably already 1800+) Dvoretsky might be right - but they likely have more they could learn from silman.

My favourite pawn endgame book is "The final countdown" by Hajenius and van Riemsdijk. They explain the material based on key squares, corresponding squres and appended squares and to me it was very logical. But maybe a bit too advanced to start with.

Maybe a web search can point you to a pawn endgame course. The material I've got is only in German....

Once you think you can master pawn endgames go to the dejascacchi (hope I didn't mistype) page and download the pawn endgame studies and try your luck.

Thank you all so much for your advice and help. Especially n9531l and logozar for the reading suggestions that I think I might use.  I'm going to the library later and I will see if they have either Secrets of Pawn Endings or Silman's Endgame Manual and I will use whichever they have. I really appreciate the insight.