White to move. Is this a win or draw? How should white proceed?
Daily Chess Improvement: Must Know K&P Endgame
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White to move. Is this a win or draw? How should white proceed?
h-3 h-4 win
But could White win if Black’s King was at f6 instead of e6?
He can’t, and he can’t win if the black king is on f7 either.
1. h4 gxh4 2. Kxh4 Kf6 3. Kh5 Kg7 4. Kg5 wins
1. … Kf6 2. h5 and black cannot defend both the h pawn queening as well as white taking the black g pawn and controlling g6, after which the white g pawn will queen.
As usual in endgames, it is very instructive to look at the “wrong” moves- indeed, I often learn more from them. In this position, the move a lot of players would play on instinct would be 1.Kf3:
1. Kf3?
This is a hard move to not play, especially if you have a rudimentary understanding of the concept of opposition. It would appear that black can’t take the opposition at f5 because of the white g-pawn, but that is short term thinking only. Black can even play Ke5 now because the opposition after 2.Ke3 is useless to white because of the black g-pawn’s coverage of f4:
1. ………….Ke5 (or Kf6, Ke7, and Kf7 also draw)
2. Ke3 Kd5
And the white king not only cannot infiltrate via f4, but he can no longer profit by pushing the h-pawn- black would just take at h4 and follow the white king back to the kingside and take up residence at f4 the move after white plays Kg2, and then shuffle from f4 to g5 as white’s king shuffles from g2 and h3.
Also, as I mentioned, black draws with even less obvious moves after 1Kf3, though those defenses require a bit of care:
1. Kf3 Kf6
This offers the white king the option of moving to the fourth rank, and it still draws:
2. Ke4
It does no good for white to play 2.h4 gh4 3.Kf2 Kg5=. Continuing:
2. ………..Ke6! (the only draw is to take the direct opposition now)
3. Kd4
Again, it is too late to play 3.h4 for the same reasons discussed above. Continuing:
3. …………Kd6!=
Draws via 1. ….Kf7 and 1. ….Ke7 are similar.
To Karthik’s analysis of 1.h4, I would only add that black can do no better with…
1. h4! gh4
2. Kh4 Kf7
3. Kh5!
The only winning move for white. Takes the simple diagonal opposition. The idea behind this is to take the direct opposition if black plays Kg7 or Kg8 with Kg5 or Kg6 respectively. If black plays Kf8 instead on the third move, white can take the diagonal opposition again with Kh6, or he can simply play Kg6 since Kg8 is then met by g5 putting black in zugzwang.
Thanks very much for taking the time to help players learn more about endgames 🙂 , simple positions like this are good for learning purposes because you can see your mistakes more easily than in a complex position.