Grinding EndGame after a Pawn Advantage

Nice game- I have the same set of weaknesses that you have, and find it so satisfying to win with a pawn advantage because it's so rare. One small improvement; 37.a1=Q seems stronger than fxe6.

As said above.. also this works..

38. Rb8 Kf2 39. Rb1 and white has to sac the bishop and an easy endgame for black...

Black can also sac the Rook, e and c pawn after that and still win with the 3 pawns at kingside.

You could have saved yourself a little time with 37...a1=Q 38.Bxa1 Rxa1 39.e7 Re1 -+

Explain your title.. you clearly have a queen advatage in my oppinion, this endgame is winnable for any decent (500+ rating) player.

I think she means at move 18, a pawn up, she wasn't afraid to trade queens and instead of trying to win in the middle game (e.g. white even had doubled f pawns to expose the king) she went for the endgame.

Well first of all congradulatoins :) it's a great feeling to win a game with an idea that you haven't done before.

The most important thing about endgames is activity.  As a rule you'll much rather fall a little behind in material than have your pieces become inactive... black is pretty comfortable being better in both areas.  Still, to play the endgame well you have to extract as much activity from each piece as you can.  In the middlegame having one or two pieces out of play can be manageable, but in the endgame your position will hurt a lot more if one piece out of play ends up being 1/3rd or 1/2 of your entire army.

On move 26...Bf6 you say taking the long diagonal, but that diagonal doesn't matter.  If anything the move (almost) restrics white's only (good) minor piece, the knight.  Better was Bc5 or b5. 

With 26...Bc5 you can win the pawn on f2 even if white protects it again -- white can't give up his rook for your two minor pieces because your remaining rook + soon to be passed pawn are just too much.  As you noticed white might as well not have his bishop, it's so far out of play by the time it could come back you'll have queened already, and actually your rook will then win the a pawn and you'll have two connected passer and a rook vs a knight and a king (easily winning).

26...b5 creates a passed pawn immediately.

You play 27...a5 which gives you a backward b pawn?  Of course you're still winning but this just makes it more difficult for you.  Again 27...b5 creating a passed pawn is the way to go.

White plays for a cheap-o on f7 and you win another pawn... after this white could resign, but you play fine and win easily from there.

Well played. I might also have played 27... a5 fixing that weak a4 pawn. It seems to me that this pawn will be impossible to defend in the long run. The ending arising after 19... cxd4 is great for black. Your advantage is bigger than just one pawn because of white's bad pawn structure.

In the opening 6... d5 in response to e5 is a typical idea but I'm not sure it works so well in this particular position due to 7. Ba2!. For example 7... d4 8. exf6 dxc3 9. Qe2!? when black's kingside might be difficult to develop. I would simply play 6... dxe5 7. Nxe5 e6.

I have a different take on this issue.

Like you I’m a novice chess player. And until very recently I, too, thought the best way to play was to surprise the opponent in the opening and then out-maneuver him with tactics in order to mate as soon as possible. Now I feel the endgame is the most beautiful part of the game. It’s exactly like writing a story: the end is the essential element.

Openings, like story openings, lay the foundation for the rest, but the best openings are as short as possible. The middle is the most interesting, because it’s filled with puzzles and problems, but eventually they’re solved and overcome. These puzzles and problems ought not to be in the game at all, though, unless they lead inevitably to an advantage in the endgame. I mean, what’s the point of putting a king in check unless you want to force a certain move or gain a tempo without losing an advantageous position? Why move a pawn unless it’s absolutely essential?

I gained my new admiration for the endgame by reading Bruce Pandolfini’s Endgame Workshop. Pandolfini recommends learning endgame techniques before focusing on tactics. He convinced me of the wisdom of this approach.

In the endgame the power of the king becomes evident. He escapes his cage; he attacks ill-placed knights and rooks; he takes bishops who approach him on the wrong-color diagonal and evades a bishop who has lost his “mate.” He can often resist defeat by forcing a draw, a stalemate, or a perpetual check. His only nemesis is the opposing queen, but if you exchange queens before the endgame, it’s a mute point. His opponent, the king, is forbidden from approaching him too closely, as if the two pieces were magnetic polar opposites.

In the endgame, suddenly the “mere pawns in the game,” who appear to be expendable in the opening and middle, take on paramount importance. Until one of the kings loses all his pieces and all his pawns, the endgame is all about promoting a pawn.

Pandolfini writes about the endgame’s amazing geometrical patterns. Take Reti’s “diagonal march” idea. Reti showed how the shortest distance between two points on the chessboard for a king can often be a v-shaped or zigzag path across the files.

Playing and thinking about chess this way has helped me with a story I’ve been struggling with for a very long time. I just realized yesterday that my problem was the ending, not the opening or middle. An ending in which the protagonist overcomes all obstacles is often boring compared to a clever stalemate.

Unfortunately, my story was heading for a boring end. Now my protagonist is on her way to a beautiful stalemate, because in her universe there’s “no God in Heaven” and “all is not right with the world.”

 b-d6 was also possible and also sets a small but obvious trap...if rook attacks the pieces stick the fork in on f2

Maybe... ... but I would be kind of worried by 7... Ne4 8. Nxd5 when not only white has an extra pawn but he is also threatening d3.

You are not letting me get away with hasty analysis. Ok, I gave this line some more thought.

I am still not convinced that black is out of the woods in the variation with Ne3. Pawn is a pawn and I think it's rather black who has to prove that she can get some compensation or win the pawn back. I must admit that originally I somewhat underestimated e6 not noticing that it also gives Ne4 a flightsquare in g5. Even so black has to be carefull that Ne4 won't get trapped. It seems to me that alternatively white can also hope some advantage by sacrificing the pawn back. More importanly 8. Nxe4 (instead of 8. Nxd5) also leads to big edge for white. My apologies for not noticing this earlier. When posting to forums I usually just record my quick impression and occasionaly miss something embarassingly simple. 

See the diagram in my earlier post - I added some new lines.

 its not really trappy...it wins another pawn.  While it doesn't allow you to control the diagonal it does win the 2nd pawn.  If a trap wins material and or improves your position you should not discount it because it is a "trap". it should be pretty simple(at least clear strategically) win once the second pawn is won(and either the bishop or knights come off the board).