A Year of King and Pawn
The goal: 52 posts on king and pawn endings in 2015
- Bobby trades down
2. The Final Move of 2014
- A blogger wins a pawn ending using an idea remembered from two decades earlier.
3. Sixty Memorable Annotations #30
- Ivanchuk forces a king and pawn ending at Wikj at which point Jobava resigns ... to general confusion (including for some engines)
4. Swapsies
- van Wely gets in wrong against Wojtaszek at Wijk.
5. Our Electronic Pals: Then and Now
- back to the 1990s: a computer blowing a pawn endgame against Anand
6. Grandmaster Preparation: (King and Pawn) Endgame Play
- the difference between rook and pawn and king and pawn endings
7. Bent Larsen’s Best King and Pawn Endgames: The Opposition
- Bent gets his GM title doing the basics.
8. Bent Larsen’s Best King and Pawn Endgames: The Square
- Elementary technique wins a Candidates’ match
9. Sixty Memorable Annotations #31
- Viktor Korchnoi gives a young whippersnapper a ticking off and some triangulation
- On the flexibility of moral codes (with a bit more triangulation thrown in)
11. Sixty Memorable Annotations #32
- When trading down can be wrong, even when it’s right.
12. 10 Types of Chesser III
- Nobody does any real chess work, and neither do I.
13. Work Avoidance
- Training resources that are - in reality - a way to avoid effort and rather lovely ending from Shirov.
14. A Good Book That May Well be Useless
- A reflection on chess 'learning materials' and why a book I quite liked may not help anybody improve. (And in passing another lovely pawn ending from Shirov)
15. On Lessons and Chapters
- Contrasting the "Lesson Aims" which appear in Jonathan Hawkins’ From Amateur to IM, with the absence of anything similar in Joel Benjamin’s Liquidation on the Chessboard. Spoiler: I prefer the former.
16. We Need to Talk About Wesley
- A chinwag about Wesley So getting defaulted at the US Championships and a game of his when he has the choice of trading queens to reach a pawn ending or keeping the pieces on.
17. BORP? XXXII
- A blogger’s (trivial) pawn ending and a rather more complicated GM example of the key question: trade the pieces or keep them on.
18. BORP? XXXIII
- Another 'trade down?' decision from Grandmaster versus Amateur.
19. Bank Holiday Monday
- A puzzle to fill your day.
20. On the Appropriateness of Forgetting
- The last moves of Kasparov’s last game ... and he trades into a lost king and pawn ending.
21. Grigoriev: Falling at the last hurdle
- How a blogger nearly solved a Grigoriev study.
22. Grigoriev versus The Oscars
- Another Grigoriev study and some words about the ECF’s Player of the Year Award.
23. Chess Today
- Losing a winning pawn ending.
24. Oops
- From a dominating position Anand allows Carlsen to trade into a lost king and pawn ending
25. Magnus Carlsen vs Wili Schalge
- When you’re famous for your fails.
26. Sousse
- When cities stop being cities and become places where chess tournaments once took place.
27. Readers’ Hour
- A king and pawn ending - Sigfusson vs Polar, 1988 - suggested by Jon H.
28. Calculation Simplification
- An idea: study king and pawn ending for calculation practice.
29. Build Up Your King and Pawn Endings
- The first book of Yusupov’s 9-volume training course is absurdly difficult.
30. Fighting to the End
- Musings on what makes a good player good - and a chance missed by the personification of 'never give up', Walter Browne.
31. Sitges
- Reflections on a blogger’s mediocre tournament including a not tremendously interesting pawn ending.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
Hi Jonathan B.
ReplyDeleteIf you have the book Judit Polar: The Princess of Chess by Tibor Karolyi, there is a brilliant king and pawn ending on page 41.
The game is Sigfusson-Polar, Reykjavik 1988. Position: 8/1p6/p2p4/P2k4/1P3Kp1/6P1/8/8. Black to play.
51...Kd4!! (preparing to shoulder. Instead 51...Kc4 52.Kxg4 53.Kf3! Kd3 blocks the pawn and is less effective eg 54.g4 d4 55.g5 Kc2 56.g6 d3 57.g7 d2 58.g8Q d1Q+)52.Kxg4 Ke4!! (shouldering not only covers f3 but the f5 square too. 52...Ke3? 53.Kf5 d5 54.g4 d4 55.g5 d3 56.g6 d2 57.g7 d1Q 58.g8Q Qd3+ 59.Kg5 Qb5+ 60.Kf6 Qxb4 is not so clear) 53.Kh3 (Kg5 blocks g pawn, Kh5 allows promotion with check, Kh4 similar to game) 53...Kf3! 54.g4 Kf4!! ([this is the bit I like!JH]. Driving the K to h5) 55.Kh4 d5 56.g5 Kf5! 57.Kh5 d4 58.g6 d3 59.g7 d2 60.g8Q d1Q+ 61.Kh6 Qh1+ 62.Kg7 Qg2+ 63.Kf8 Qxg8+ 64.Kxg8 Ke6 65.Kf8 Kd5 66.Ke7 Kc4 0-1. (notes based on Karolyi's)
Best,
Jon H