Thought process to find the right move.

My question (to start this topic off) is what move would you play in this position and what is your eval of the position. It is easy to throw this in a computer so please don't do that. I'm looking for organic analysis and some help. Thanks in advance.

This comes from a blunderfull game I just played and I was very surprised by this positions secrets.

I played Ke7 here, but Bf3 leads to the same result. There is another move that is better. Thank you for your thoughts.

Here is one way to win it. This was a very complicated problem and I first explored the idea that was mentioned by blastform but then realized that I could not make progress.

I then realized that if I put my Bishop on d5 and then advanced my e pawn to e4 that my King could worm into the pawns on the queenside and if White tried to pursue its 3 on 2, I could stop it with the Bishop. White would need to sac his Bishop for the e pawn to stop that plan.

I then decided to setup the position and play it against Fritz at Grandmaster level to make sure my plan worked. Here are the moves.

This was a very instructive endgame with a lot of nuances. Thanks for posting it.

K_Brown is correct that Ke7 doesn't work against best defense, although that best defense is difficult to find in practice. The problem is that it allows White to play Bb3 and control that important diagonal.

Yes indeed. It is absolutely crazy to me that any other move besides 1..Bd5 is a draw. 

I thought I had all the necessities to win except king activation. I have control of the h1 - a8 diagonal with the possibility of going Bg2 or Bf3 in the future and protection of the a6 pawn.  It was my understanding that white would need to get in h4 before they could make any progress.

In hindsight I can definitely see how 1..Bd5 is better but it is still hard for me to say that it is completely necessary without a computer telling me so. 1..Bd5 employs one of my favorite things that I read about early on in my chess exposure called "Active Prophylaxis". It is fairly obvious that white wants to play 2.Bb3 so I guess the real question is: "Why let them?"

@madratter7 Thanks for your analysis and play through. I appreciate it.

Black's plan is fairly obvious, and cannot be stopped: pushing that pawn at e4, and then penetrating with the king at e5/d4 etc.

White's counterplay is: being ready to create a kingside passed pawn by h4 and g5, when the f-pawn can march. But it does not seem that it has anywhere to go without help, and the only piece that can help is a bishop on the a2-g8 diagonal.

Hence, the first move should be 1...Bd5, which does a very basic thing: It suppresses white's intended counterplay, which is a huge priority. The push of the e5 pawn can wait a little bit without any consequences.

Another thing that I want to say about this position as I was going through various lines is this:

Something that piqued my interest was that the computer played h4 later on (which I fully expected) but instead of playing the pawn break g5, it played h5  instead ,which I hadn't even thought about for some reason, totally locking the position and securing the draw. 

I think that in practical play for anyone under 1800, black is probably going to win most of the time in this position. I find white has all the chances of going wrong whereas black's winning strategy is easier to attain with less risk.

Thanks IM Pfren. 

It makes perfect sense when you put it like that.  (If only I could refine my thoughts as well as that...)

This actually reminds me of something that I was taught to do but didn't.

I should of took the bishops off the board in my mind and evaluated the position from there.

It is easy to see that if you do that, that his king is in a good position to keep my e-pawn push plan at a stand still. Therefore, 1..Bd5 becomes more obvious and it is actually easier to see how this move has such a big impact on the outcome of the game.

@psykoactive

The only way to do that effectively is with 1..Bd5 which is another nuance of the position. If white's bishop is allowed to play Bb3, white can keep you very busy and good luck getting to the pawn.