An endgame course

Pawn endgames

Trade everything off and the truth comes out: one tempo, one square, one king a step too slow. This course teaches the four mechanisms that settle king and pawn endings, from the opposition to the Réti manoeuvre, each one from the writer who set it down.

Before the moves: the big ideas

The king in front, one square to spare

Capablanca's essential rule for the single pawn: the king belongs in front of its pawn with at least one intervening square, and if the defending king stands directly in front of the pawn the game cannot be won. Half of this course is that sentence played out from both sides.

Opposition is a means, key squares are the end

Averbakh's correction to a century of rote teaching: opposition is a means to an end, and the end is penetration to a key square. If the king can reach one without the opposition, take the shorter road.

Count the square before you run

Draw the square from the pawn to its queening rank: a defending king inside it catches the runner, one outside it loses the race. Fishbein supplies the second layer the bare rule misses, an attacking king that shoulders the defender out even after it enters the square.

One king, two errands

Réti's 1921 study rescued a hopeless-looking draw by giving the king two jobs per move: chase the enemy runner and escort its own. Gurvich called the theme the hunt of two hares, and it decides real games, not just studies.

The lessons, method then drills

Read the method first; the steps below are what the drills put to work. Learn walks a drill with the coach. Recall is free play against the engine: prove the goal within the drill's move budget, and any move that keeps it alive stands.

King versus king, one tempo apart

The opposition

Two kings face each other and neither wants to move: whoever must step aside lets the other through. Capablanca gives the parity rule: with an even number of squares between the kings, the mover seizes the opposition; with an odd number, the player who has moved last has it. Edward Lasker adds the defensive half, a king that commands the queening square and takes the first-rank opposition the moment the pawn touches its sixth rank cannot lose.

1.Count the squares between the kings on their shared line. Even gap: taking a step seizes the opposition. Odd gap: whoever moved last already holds it.
2.Holding it, advance only when the enemy king gives ground; step diagonally to keep the count in your favour.
3.Use it for something: the opposition is a means, and the end is reaching a key square beside the pawns.
4.Defending, plant the king on the queening square and wait for the pawn to reach its sixth: then take the opposition on the first rank and the position is stalemate or repetition.

Whoever moves wins

goal: win within 20 moves

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The first-rank stand

goal: draw within 12 moves

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K+P vs K

King and pawn: the escort

One pawn wins or draws on a single condition, and Capablanca states it before showing either side: the king belongs in front of its pawn with at least one intervening square, and a defending king planted directly in front of the pawn kills the win. His two worked examples are this lesson's two drills, the same ending from both chairs.

1.Winning, walk the king ahead of the pawn and keep it ahead; the pawn advances only when its own safety demands it.
2.Take every square the defender concedes; the escort gains ground on zigzags, not on the pawn's file alone.
3.At the sixth rank, mind the one losing move: advancing the pawn to the sixth with check hands over the draw.
4.Defending, stand directly in front of the pawn; forced away, go in front of the enemy king instead and hold the opposition.

The escort wins

goal: win within 16 moves

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The blockade holds

goal: draw within 12 moves

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King versus passed pawn

The rule of the square

A runner with no escort is caught by geometry: draw the square from the pawn to its queening rank, and a defending king inside it arrives in time. Fishbein's demonstration supplies the second layer the bare rule misses, because entering the square is not the same as crossing it when the attacking king stands in the road.

1.Draw the square in your head: pawn to queening square on one side, the same distance along the rank on the other.
2.Defender inside the square catches the pawn; outside it, the race is already lost. Check before you commit the king.
3.Attacking, do not race at all if your king can block: step into the defender's path so every escort move also shoulders it away.
4.Only when the road is clear does the pawn run.

The shoulder block

goal: win within 12 moves

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K+P vs K+P, king outside the square

The Réti manoeuvre

The most famous endgame study there is: White's king sits outside the square of the black pawn with its own runner blockaded, and every count says lost. Réti published the rescue in 1921, a king walk on the one diagonal where each step does two jobs with every step counted. Black must spend two tempi on White's pawn, and those are exactly the two tempi the king needs to reach the square of Black's.

1.Refuse the straight chase; a king outside the square never catches the runner by running.
2.Walk the diagonal that leans on both errands at once: toward your own pawn's escort square and toward the enemy runner's square.
3.The defender must break off to deal with your pawn; each move it spends there is a tempo you gain on the chase.
4.Arrive at the fork square, then take whichever errand the defender abandoned.

The hunt of two hares

goal: draw within 10 moves

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Sources

Chess Fundamentals, José Raúl Capablanca · Public domain on Project Gutenberg, read in full with the original diagrams. Supplies the opposition position (Example 27), both king-and-pawn demonstrations (Examples 5 and 6), and the scoping sentence behind the corresponding-squares exclusion.
Chess Strategy, Edward Lasker · Public domain on Project Gutenberg, read directly from the ASCII diagrams. Supplies the first-rank drawing method with its rule stated in full, and the rook-pawn exception the coverage defers.
Opposition (chess) · Read as wikitext: the modern statement of the rule with the Averbakh purpose quote, and Gligorić vs Fischer 1959 as the practical demonstration.
King and pawn versus king endgame · Read as wikitext: key-square theory, the two-of-three winning rules, the rule of the square with Fishbein's blocking demonstration, and the rook-pawn positions held for a future lesson.
Réti endgame study · Read as wikitext: the study, its full solution with attributed branches, the naming history, and the real games that used the manoeuvre before and after Réti composed it.
Endgame Corner #10: Opposition, Triangulation and more, Karsten Müller · ChessCafe Endgame Corner, October 2001, recovered from the Wayback Machine: opposition and key squares in a GM's own teaching examples, plus the triangulation material the coverage defers.

The methods come from the sources above; Stockfish checks that every drill reaches its stated goal on the board.