need help on basic pawn ending

Hello!

I'm working on basic engames. Especially on pawn ending.

Here's what I know :
- how to win / defend / draw when king are involved, near the pawn.
- how to get opposition from a distance (sliman rules "same color cornered square with the other to play" and "odd number of cases between your kings with the other to play").

BUT.

what is going on here :
en.lichess.org/2SmpYAgh/white#0

if I try to get the opposition, with the rectangle-with-same-colored-corner : I play e2. And it's a draw wathever I do.

Can someone tell me how to avoid that : how do you get to understand that you HAVE TO play f2?

Thank you a lot for your answers!
Cheers,
Régis.

The exact same thing happens here : if I don't play C2, it's a draw.

en.lichess.org/Dy0uFXhA/white#1

You must enter the key squares of your pawn with your king. These are e5,f5,g5 in the first example and a6,b6,c6 in the second. you must go to these squares in such a way that the black king can not oppose you.

i give you another hint: a8 and h8 can be reached in the same time by a king on h1.

@SelfmateMan
Is this something you completely calculate from the start or are there 'decision rules' you that can tell you where to go easily

I wouldn't bother too much about that kind of endgame. You rarely get those positions and if you get any of them you'll be lost half of the time anyway. It's a good idea to be more practical and to study endgames that are more likely to happen. I'm not saying you're wrong in studying that kind of thing but it's not very efficient in terms of rating improvement.

@jimj12 #5 do you mean the key squares?

In this simple case it is endgame theory. In other cases they can be found.

Key square = if the attacking king is on that square, it is a win, no matter where the defending king is (except of course squares where he could immediately take the pawn).

in K+P versus K, the key squares for every pawn which is not an a- or h- pawn are always the three squares two rows before the pawn. For example d4,e4,f4 for a white pawn e2; c3,d3,e3 for a black pawn d5.

If the pawn is on the fifth+ rank then also the three squares directly before the pawn are key squares. For example a white pawn e5 also has d6,e6,f6 as key squares, a black pawn c4 also has b3,c3,d3 as key squares.

if the pawn is on the sixth rank and the defending king is in front of it, then it is only a win if the pawn can move to the seventh rank 'silently', aka, without giving check.

a- and h-pawns have no key squares ( some have, eg, white pawn h5 has g7 as key square ) they only win if no own and no opponent king is in their way.

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@todo_pro #6 Utterrrrr Noooonsense.

I meant your "you must go to these squares in such a way that the black king can not oppose you"

I suppose it's not that difficult to calculate but it takes quite a lot of time - I was asking if there were any general shortcuts to find 1. Kf2 etc, maybe some kind of pattern you need to maintain with the opposite king

Your post is quite useful though, thank you

SelfmateMan, when was the last time you had a position where both kings are on the first rank and there's only one pawn on the board? My point is that there are too many things to learn in chess and that a better idea is first learn things that are statistically more relevant. Pawn endgames are relevant, but you rarely need to think of distant opposition, for example. If you like to study that kind of thing it's ok. But to me it's a waste of time when there's a lot of more useful things to learn.

@Regis74

The thing to remember with those positions is that opposition is just a tool that helps you accomplish other goals.

Opposition isn't a goal in itself.

In these pawn endings, we want to queen our pawn, which usually means we'll need to eventually control the queening square (the exception being when the other king is too slow to get to the pawn; then we obviously don't care about opposition or controlling the square because we can satisfy our main goal, queening, without using it).

Opposition is one tool that can help us accomplish this, but at some point in the process you may have to use another tool.

Take this position for example, towards the end of winning a KPvK ending.

en.lichess.org/roheGI7y

Here the way to win is not to take opposition (Kg6 and Ke6 actually do technically still win, but only because you can force the position to repeat and then outflank; they're not part of an independent winning plan), but to outflank and control the queening square.

In the positions you showed, the winning moves are the winning moves because you're getting closer to your goal of outflanking the opposing king and controlling the queening square.

Another way to look at those particular positions is that if you take opposition immediately, you won't be able to keep it.

That requires a bit of calculating to see, but eventually the pawn gets in the way of your maintaining opposition.

Hopefully this helps!