Outside Passed Pawn Wins Again

 A very common error in King and Pawn endings is to keep pushing your pawns forward in a middle game attack fashion. However, that often leads to lost endings! 

In the following three minute blitz game played at the Internet Chess Club in Pennsylvania, Black played the losing move pawn to b4. Do you see why?

After some pawn exchanges on the b4 square, White(Gianky59 from the country of Switzerland ) wins easily by capturing Black's f5 pawn which forces the creation of outside passed White h pawn which will drag the Black Monarch way out of play!!!

ChessFactor content provider IM Andrey Ostrovskiy does an above average job of explaining the mechanisms associated with these type of structures that involve "on the edge of the board" type of motifs. Istanbul, Turkey chess benefactor Mert Bahadır is an ardent fan of Andrey's pedagogy and self-effacing style.

BTW Black would have easily drawn by replacing the blunder b4 with the drawing Kd6 which leads to a sterile, innocuous drawn position!

Trading Queens a Losing Blunder in the blitz game

Swedish player Gianky59, a weak 1498 player, after playing better than his low USCF rating, offered a Queen exchange on the e3 square which leads to a LOST King and Pawn ending in the following diagrammed position.

After the exchange on that dark square, Black plays Kf5 to be in attacking range of White's over advanced and vulnerable 3-2 Queenside Majority. Black is easily winning because she can make an outside passed h pawn! 

 

Making Outside passed Pawn a Blunder in this Blitz Game

 Was reminded of John Watson's excoriation of  rule dependence when when Chisel playing out of the United Kingdom played a3 believing his outside passed pawn would win. However Black's counter shot c3 forces resignation. 

White might catch up to the Black queenside pawns, but the Black King at e5 would rush to ingest white's defenseless peons at h3 and g3.

YouTube superstars MatoJelic and ChessFactor both seem to advocate unconditionally that outside passed rook pawns win in all variations. Maybe I was just more drunk than usual that night when viewing those videos cuz Nicky Pert does not make many mistakes when pontificating about the Royal Game!

Careless pawn recapture leads to lost endgame

Hot blooded and passionate Mexican/Spanish players often have an overly aggressive romantic way of expressing themselves chessically.

The problem experienced by ICC player Churrumais77 is that he was too forceful in a technical King and Pawn ending where patience and circumspection were of more value.

In the following diagram, with white to move, one pawn captures loses and the other retains drawing possibilities. White blundered with King takes pawn on the f4 square.  Do you see reason why this capture loses?  The  reason is posted beneath the commentary underneath the diagrammed position.

Adena Johnston, who must be a jerk herself, wrote sometimes being a jerk is the only way to be a good leader. I think this relates to behavior of many chess players in an obscure sort of way and would love to know if Adena would possibly concur?



Solution: Black captures White's g5 pawn which leads to the creation of an outside passed h pawn. As the White monarch chases down the distant passed pawn, the Black King ingests the c3 and b4 pawns and Queens one of his two passed pawns to decide the game!!!!