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- Playing chess well is not just one
- skill but a collection of many
- different skills. It is possible
- to know some aspects of the game
- extremely well while knowing nothing
- at all about some other areas of the
- game.
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- One of the most neglected areas of
- chess study is the endgame. Many
- players consider endgame study to be
- too boring or too much work to be
- worth the time. But in the long
- run endgame study can really pay off.
- In many games it can make the
- difference between a win and a draw
- or make the difference between a draw
- and a loss.
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- Since most endgame books already
- cover elementary checkmates, this
- book is going to cover king and pawn
- endgames, which is by far the most
- common kind of endgame.
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- If you study this lesson carefully
- then you will have a good mastery of
- king and pawn endgames.
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- #1
- There is a saying that passed pawns
- should be pushed, and it couldn't be
- more true than in this case.
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- In order to stop the pawn the Black
- king has to be able to reach the
- queening square within 4 moves.
- He is clearly too far away to
- stop the pawn.
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- One quick way to determine this is to
- use the "square of the pawn" rule.
- Imagine a box where the diagonal
- extends from the pawn on a4 to square
- e8. The complete box has the
- corners a4, e4, a8, and e8.
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- If the Black king can reach this box
- immediately then he can stop the
- pawn. Since he cannot reach this
- box on this move then he is lost.
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- #2
- Sometimes players mis-estimate how
- long it takes a pawn to queen.
- In the above example the pawn on
- the left takes 5 moves to queen.
- The next pawn on the b file also
- takes 5 moves to queen. The pawn
- to the right of that takes 4.
- The next 3 pawns take 3, 2, and 1
- respectively. Learn this and it
- will come in handy.
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