How to win with a King and Pawn against a King
Is a single Pawn so very important?
Even a single Pawn can be the difference between winning and losing. This simple fact is vital for beginning chess players to understand. The material at your disposal is important — and that means every Pawn is important. Just winning a Pawn can be the edge that allows you to win; and losing a Pawn can be the edge that allows your opponent to win.
That little material advantage — a single Pawn — often comes down to the question of winning the King and Pawn vs. King ending.
Of course, knowing how to defend the ending can be the difference between a loss and a draw — but that will be the subject of a future blog post.
Use your King to fight!
The first simple rule to remember in most King and Pawn endings is this: get your King in front of your Pawn. If you do just that, you’ll win a lot more endgames. (And this rule applies to more than just King and Pawn endings.)
Chess Endgame Strategy – The Square of the Pawn
How to tell if the King can catch a Pawn in a race
(Video below the jump.)
Often a game of chess will end with two Kings and one Pawn: King and Pawn vs. King. And very often in those situations, the question is simply this: can the King catch the Pawn?
In the following diagram we have just such a situation … the King would like to catch the Pawn before it reaches the 8th rank to become a Queen, and the Pawn is trying to race to its 8th rank. Who wins? There is a simple rule to decide which side wins these races.
Chess Endgame Strategy – King & Queen v King & Pawn
The importance of chess endgame strategy
It is very common for chess games to come down to an endgame, and very often those endgames amount to a single Pawn or a Pawn for each side (plus the Kings, of course). In order to win more chess games, you must know endgame strategy.
Queen v. Pawn strategy
Take a look at this endgame diagram:
The players each have a simple overall strategy for winning (or drawing) this game. White’s strategy is to capture Black’s pawn. In order to do that, he must do two other things: he must first prevent Black from promoting his Pawn, and he must attack the Pawn with both his King and Queen (the Queen alone can’t safely capture the Pawn as long as Black’s King guards it). In order to do this, White must bring both his King and Queen to bear on the Pawn; both must attack the Pawn at the same time.
Preventing Black from promoting the Pawn can be done by pinning the Pawn and keeping Black busy with checks against his King. Bringing White’s King closer requires that Black have his King in front of his Pawn, physically blocking the Pawn from the promotion square. This will give White a free move (a tempo) to move his King closer to the Pawn. Each time Black’s King sits on the promotion square, White has a free move to bring his own King closer to the action.
Black, on the other hand, wants to promote his Pawn to Queen (which would result in a draw). In order to do that, Black wants to both protect his Pawn from capture while leaving the promotion square open so that if he gets a chance, he can push the pawn to e1.
Black’s strategy is simple; and while White’s strategy is equally simple, executing the strategy requires careful maneuvering.
Here are the moves for finishing this mate. The starting position is in the diagram above. Also listen to the video for my additional comments about the position and White’s techniques for winning the game.
- Qf6+ Kg1
- Qe5 Kf1
- Qf4+ Kg1
- Qe3 Kf1
- Qf3+ Ke1
White has driven the Black King in front of the Pawn (which Black has resisted as long as possible), preventing Black from promoting and giving White time to bring up his King. Achieving this position is one of White’s intermediate strategic objectives. Watch how White brings about this position several times in order to give his King opportunities to move closer to the action.
- Kb7 Kd2
- Qf2 Kd1
- Qd4+ Kc1
- Qe3 Kd1
- Qd3+ Ke1
- Kc6 Kf2
Avoiding Kf1, which would be moving into a pin and would give White a “free move” to bring the King closer.
- Qd2 Kf1
- Qf4+ Kg1
- Qe3 Kf1
- Qf3+ Ke1
- Kd5 Kd2
- Qf4+ Kd1
- Qd4+ Kc1
- Qe3 Kd1
- Qd3+ Ke1
- Ke4 Kf2
Now the White King is close enough to help in both attacking the Black Pawn and delivering checkmate to the Black King. You can’t give checkmate with the Queen alone … the Queen needs some help (from either friendly or enemy pieces) to checkmate the King.
- Qf3+ Kg1
- Qe2 Kh1
- Kf3 Kg1
- Qg2# …
This ending works every time against a Knight-pawn or center-pawn (the b-pawn, d-pawn, e-pawn, or g-pawn). The Rook-pawns and Bishop-pawns can be more tricky and sometimes impossible to win. That will be the subject of another post soon.
This chess endgame is very important to know, and it is surprising how few average tournament players know this ending. If you play enough chess, this will come up. You should know this well enough to be able to play it without thinking. Well … at least not thinking too much. 
You can find this endgame in Reuben Fine’s masterwork, Basic Chess Endings
Chess Strategies – How to Checkmate with King and Queen vs. King
One of the first chess strategies that every beginner needs to learn is how to checkmate the opponent. So many beginners’ games end as a draw simply because the superior side doesn’t know how to turn an overwhelming material advantage into a checkmate.
I faced the same problem when teaching my children how to play chess, and I came up with a simple set of rules for checkmating the opponent’s bare king when you have a king and queen.
Here are the rules:
Get your king in the center;
Make the box smaller;
Cut off the row;
Get the king in position;
Checkmate with the Queen, 1, 2, 3.
The first rule is to get your king in the center. If your opponent has his King in the center (and he should) you will need to use your Queen together with your King to drive him out, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to do.
The second rule is to make the box smaller. What I mean by a “box” is this: if you draw imaginary vertical and horizontal lines from your Queen to the edges of the board, you will see 1, 2, or 4 rectangular boxes. Your opponent’s King will be in one of those boxes. He will try to keep his King in the biggest box; your job is to make the box that the opponent’s King is in smaller and smaller, one step at a time. You do this by moving your King and Queen together to constrict the space your opponent has available.
Third, you cut off the row. That is, eventually your making the box smaller will drive your opponent’s King to one of the edges of the board. When your opponent’s King stands on a square at the edge of the board, use your Queen to occupy the adjoining row (it can be either a vertical row or a horizontal row), which will keep him permanently stuck on the edge.
Fourth, get your King in position for the checkmate. Specifically, move your King to a position directly opposite your opponent’s King.
Fifth, checkmate with the Queen, one, two, three. “One, two, three” refers to the pattern that the pieces will make in the final position. The opponent’s King will be on the edge of the board, one; your Queen will be in a line next to the opponent’s King in the next row, two; and three, your own King will stand next to the Queen, protecting it from capture.
The ability to checkmate your opponent is one of the first chess strategies you should master. You can look at the video I’ve uploaded to see how to do this; I even show how my seven-year-old daughter used these rules to checkmate me … in practice, of course.
What is a Chess Strategy?
Any chess player who wishes to learn to defeat his opponents consistently must learn the basic chess strategies that have stood the test of time. But what do we mean by a chess strategy?
Chess play can be divided broadly into strategy and tactics. Tactics refer to the exact moves required to win material (a pawn or a stronger piece) or gain a particular objective. Strategy, no the other hand, tells you what to do with that extra material or what objectives you’re aiming for.
A strategy might be thought of as a plan, and might be thought of without thinking of particular moves. A strategy can usually be put into words; tactics usually requires thinking of a line or lines of moves.
Chess strategies might include any of the following: endgame strategies, middlegame strategies, opening strategies, what to do with extra material, pawn strategies, or how to conduct an attack on your opponent’s king. One can even include meta-strategies, such as how to learn tactics, how to think at the board, clock management, etc.
One of the best strategies is to add to your library of good chess literature. If you’re just starting out in chess — and even if you’re an intermediate player — one of the best books to give you a good foundation is Learn Chess: A New Way For All.; The book covers all the basics for the beginning player (including the rules of chess and chess notation), a good section on tactics, opening strategy, and suggestions for ways to progress to advanced chess knowledge.
This is a must-have book for any chess player who wants to begin to take the game seriously, as it covers the basic chess strategies essential to a good foundation.
Tags: chess strategies
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