Sunday, October 01, 2006

King and Pawn Index

A Year of King and Pawn
The goal: 52 posts on king and pawn endings in 2015

1. Back to the future
- 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

10. Soviets
- 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.


1 comment:

Jon H said...

Hi Jonathan B.
If 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