Pawn endings
Submitted by
aabbccdd on Mon, 10/06/2008 at 3:41pm.
Pawn Endings are important. Very Important. (Pawn endings are to chess as putting is to golf-Fine) Here are some positions from IM Igor Khelmentsky
Black to move
IM Igor Khelmensky-
Recently, while I was working on a Training course for www.Chess.com, I saw the following endgame from the Geller -Fischer (1965, Capablanca memorial):
Geller had to make a decision - to capture the Bishop (1.Qxf3) immediately, or play 1.Qe5+ forcing the transposition into the pawn endgame. My guess that his decision wasn't that difficult as soon as he saw that he would be able to separate Black pawns after 1.Qe5+! Qxe5 2.fxe5+ Kxe5 (2...Kc6 3.gxf3 Kxb6 [3...g5 4.e6 and the King can't stop both White pawns] 4.f4 then the White K captures the Ph4, arrives to g5, and wins the Pg6 via a timely e5-e6+) 3.gxf3 Kd6 4.f4!
and now the Black g-pawn can't defend the h-pawn. Fischer resigned here, not waiting for 4...Kc6 5.Kh3 Kxb6 6.Kxh4 Kc6
7.Kg5 Kd6 8.Kxg6 Ke7 9.f5!
Kf8 10.Kf6 etc...
I don't know about Geller, but as I was reviewing the above example, I immediately thought of another position that you may have seen before from the game Nimzowitsch, A - Tarrasch, S (1911, San Sebastian)
Black transposed into the pawn endgame after 1...Rxf5 2.Kxf5 and then played 2...a5 3.Ke4 f5+!! . White resigned as his pawns will be separated after 4. Kd4 (4.Kxf4 a4) f4! and then easily picked off by the Black King
All from http://www.iamcoach.com/chess/Examples/20080815/20080815.htm