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Oops I accidentally a Draw

It happens. I still make elementary blunders when I have a brain fry. Just remember to calculate, don't be afraid to use your time to calculate and double check and triple check

It happens. I still make elementary blunders when I have a brain fry. Just remember to calculate, don't be afraid to use your time to calculate and double check and triple check

@chessalt2000 for sure. I have a really REALLY bad habit of moving fast in the endgame when I actually have a lot of time on the clock!

@chessalt2000 for sure. I have a really REALLY bad habit of moving fast in the endgame when I actually have a lot of time on the clock!

Hi, noahlz.

Yes, I would suggest looking at some basic endgames. In the meantime I would like to share some pointers with you.

The biggest one is a mistake in the process of analysis. You beat yourself up for making a miscalculation at move 40, when you could have avoided a critical scenario like that by making a better plan ten moves before. Why get into a position like that if you don't have to? As you gain experience you will start to realize that a lot of tactical mistakes like 40.Kf3?? happen after strategic blunders moves before. I mean, after move 29 you are a squeaky three pawns up. If Black even has the possibility of creating a fortress after this position, then something went wrong WAY before move 40.

i want to examine the position after 29...Bd6. You not only have three extra pawns, but you have an advanced passed pawn on e6 which puts a lot pressure on the position. This pawn would be overextended and weak if there were no bishops on the board: after 30.Ke4 Ke7 31.Kf5 Black can blockade the pawn with 31...Ke8! 32.Kf6 Kf8. However, since this is an endgame with bishops of opposite color, and your pawn is already defended by the bishop on b3, this pawn is a long-term threat to Black's position. White can leave the pawn there forever while he conducts operations elsewhere, but Black will need to keep one of his pieces attached to it to prevent it from advancing. Already I hope you can see that 30.Bd1? is a mistake, even if the engine thinks that it is fine. I saw this move and my brain played a soundbite of IM Andras Toth saying, "This move represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on in the position." Well, this is how we all play when we are beginners...

Besides this pawn on e6, you have a 2-vs.-1 majority on the queenside and a 3-vs.-2 majority on the kingside. In both cases you should be able to convert your pawn majority into passed pawns. Since these passed pawns could advance and queen, Black will need to invest resources (a piece) into blockading them.

But wait: didn't we already have a passed pawn that itself needs to be blockaded by Black? Yes indeed; so we could have had as many as THREE passed pawns in all THREE sectors of the board, and Black would have had to come up with a way to blockade all THREE—with just TWO pieces. We can all do the math and realize that Black's position would eventually crumple under the strain.

Add to this the fact that White's king is so much more active and mobile than Black's. The White king doesn't really have to defend anything yet and is only one move away from the center of the board. Just looking at this and the pawn on e6 the first move I thought of was 30.Ke4. Black might try 30...f3? 31.Kxf3 Bxh2??, but White is doing just fine after this exchange of pawns. The pawn on f2 will become a serious issue for Black if it can get to f5 safely and outright lethal if it can get to f6. (Connected passed pawns on the sixth rank like this overpower even a rook!) Meanwhile the h-pawn wouldn't be able to queen since it is stopped by the pawn on g2. In addition, White would have the reply 32.g3! Bg1 33.Kg2, scooping up the bishop for two pawns. What a nice convenience!

All of this adds up to a very general strategy. It goes like this:

  1. Create three passed pawns
  2. Advance them down the board without hanging them
  3. ???
  4. Profit

So, how do we get our passed pawns? On the qeenside we can play a2-a4 forthwith. After 30.a4 bxa4 31.Bxa4 Ke7 32.Bd7! (Not 32.Bb3?! again because we lose the b-pawn after 32...Be5) White has achieved his goal on the queenside. If Black harasses the b-pawn with his bishop then we simply move the pawn to a light square: 33.b3 (or even 33.b4 followed by 34.b5 if Black loses track of the b4-square). As for the kingside, White clearly would like to hunt the weak pawn on the h-file. The key squares are g5 and, if Black advances his h-pawn while White is maneuvering, g4, where White attacks both kingside pawns at once. The bishop will not be able to defend both (it would have to be on g3 or g5 to do so). The best path for the White king to take is Kf3-e4-f5-g5/g4. Black might try the trick with f4-f3 if White moves too far away from the f3-square so we will want to play f2-f3 ourselves before moving the king from e4.

After all of this I think the best move is 30.a4!. White does not have very many other forcing moves in the position and so he will want to get this in before Black plays 30...b4. After 30.a4 bxa4 31.Bxa4 Ke7 32.Bd7 Kf6 33.Ke4 the path forward should be easy to find. Other moves to consider are 30.Ke4 and 30.g3!?, based on the idea that after 30...fxg3 31.hxg3 White will use the f-pawn to strengthen the pawn on e6. This last plan is not very clear because the remaining pawn on g3 will become weak once the f-pawn moves to f5, giving Black a target for counterplay, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless.

I hope this helps you until you can get a good endgame course!

Hi, noahlz. Yes, I would suggest looking at some basic endgames. In the meantime I would like to share some pointers with you. The biggest one is a mistake in the process of analysis. You beat yourself up for making a miscalculation at move 40, when you could have avoided a critical scenario like that by making a better plan ten moves before. Why get into a position like that if you don't have to? As you gain experience you will start to realize that a lot of tactical mistakes like 40.Kf3?? happen after strategic blunders moves before. I mean, after move 29 you are a squeaky three pawns up. If Black even has the possibility of creating a fortress after this position, then something went wrong WAY before move 40. i want to examine the position after 29...Bd6. You not only have three extra pawns, but you have an advanced passed pawn on e6 which puts a lot pressure on the position. This pawn would be overextended and weak if there were no bishops on the board: after 30.Ke4 Ke7 31.Kf5 Black can blockade the pawn with 31...Ke8! 32.Kf6 Kf8. However, since this is an endgame with bishops of opposite color, and your pawn is already defended by the bishop on b3, this pawn is a long-term threat to Black's position. White can leave the pawn there forever while he conducts operations elsewhere, but Black will need to keep one of his pieces attached to it to prevent it from advancing. Already I hope you can see that 30.Bd1? is a mistake, even if the engine thinks that it is fine. I saw this move and my brain played a soundbite of IM Andras Toth saying, "This move represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on in the position." Well, this is how we all play when we are beginners... Besides this pawn on e6, you have a 2-vs.-1 majority on the queenside and a 3-vs.-2 majority on the kingside. In both cases you should be able to convert your pawn majority into passed pawns. Since these passed pawns could advance and queen, Black will need to invest resources (a piece) into blockading them. But wait: didn't we already have a passed pawn that itself needs to be blockaded by Black? Yes indeed; so we could have had as many as THREE passed pawns in all THREE sectors of the board, and Black would have had to come up with a way to blockade all THREE—with just TWO pieces. We can all do the math and realize that Black's position would eventually crumple under the strain. Add to this the fact that White's king is so much more active and mobile than Black's. The White king doesn't really have to defend anything yet and is only one move away from the center of the board. Just looking at this and the pawn on e6 the first move I thought of was 30.Ke4. Black might try 30...f3? 31.Kxf3 Bxh2??, but White is doing just fine after this exchange of pawns. The pawn on f2 will become a serious issue for Black if it can get to f5 safely and outright lethal if it can get to f6. (Connected passed pawns on the sixth rank like this overpower even a rook!) Meanwhile the h-pawn wouldn't be able to queen since it is stopped by the pawn on g2. In addition, White would have the reply 32.g3! Bg1 33.Kg2, scooping up the bishop for two pawns. What a nice convenience! All of this adds up to a very general strategy. It goes like this: 1. Create three passed pawns 2. Advance them down the board without hanging them 3. ??? 4. Profit So, how do we get our passed pawns? On the qeenside we can play a2-a4 forthwith. After 30.a4 bxa4 31.Bxa4 Ke7 32.Bd7! (Not 32.Bb3?! again because we lose the b-pawn after 32...Be5) White has achieved his goal on the queenside. If Black harasses the b-pawn with his bishop then we simply move the pawn to a light square: 33.b3 (or even 33.b4 followed by 34.b5 if Black loses track of the b4-square). As for the kingside, White clearly would like to hunt the weak pawn on the h-file. The key squares are g5 and, if Black advances his h-pawn while White is maneuvering, g4, where White attacks both kingside pawns at once. The bishop will not be able to defend both (it would have to be on g3 or g5 to do so). The best path for the White king to take is Kf3-e4-f5-g5/g4. Black might try the trick with f4-f3 if White moves too far away from the f3-square so we will want to play f2-f3 ourselves before moving the king from e4. After all of this I think the best move is 30.a4!. White does not have very many other forcing moves in the position and so he will want to get this in before Black plays 30...b4. After 30.a4 bxa4 31.Bxa4 Ke7 32.Bd7 Kf6 33.Ke4 the path forward should be easy to find. Other moves to consider are 30.Ke4 and 30.g3!?, based on the idea that after 30...fxg3 31.hxg3 White will use the f-pawn to strengthen the pawn on e6. This last plan is not very clear because the remaining pawn on g3 will become weak once the f-pawn moves to f5, giving Black a target for counterplay, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless. I hope this helps you until you can get a good endgame course!

Actually, in retrospect 30.a4 bxa4 31.Bxa4 Ke7 32.Bb3! would make a nice trap. If 32...Be5 33.Ke4 Bxb2 then White has 33.Kxf4. It does not seem that Black can then stop the plan 34.h3 and 35.g4, creating a tidy group of three connected passed pawns which will completely overwhelm Black.

Let's see, 33...Ke7 34.h3 Kf6 35.g4 Be5+ 36.Ke4 hxg4 37.hxg4 Bd6 38.f4. Looks like Black is toast to me.

Actually, in retrospect 30.a4 bxa4 31.Bxa4 Ke7 32.Bb3! would make a nice trap. If 32...Be5 33.Ke4 Bxb2 then White has 33.Kxf4. It does not seem that Black can then stop the plan 34.h3 and 35.g4, creating a tidy group of three connected passed pawns which will completely overwhelm Black. Let's see, 33...Ke7 34.h3 Kf6 35.g4 Be5+ 36.Ke4 hxg4 37.hxg4 Bd6 38.f4. Looks like Black is toast to me.

@forsoothplays said in #4:

I hope this helps you until you can get a good endgame course!

Wow, thank you for this analysis! I'm not really into doing courses right now, just trying to get lot of over the board play and then analyze. I spent too much of the previous two years doing courses and not enough playing + analyzing.

If you can recommend a course that is just a collection of practical endgame positions, I'm open to it of course.

@forsoothplays said in #4: > I hope this helps you until you can get a good endgame course! Wow, thank you for this analysis! I'm not really into doing courses right now, just trying to get lot of over the board play and then analyze. I spent too much of the previous two years doing courses and not enough playing + analyzing. If you can recommend a course that is just a collection of practical endgame positions, I'm open to it of course.

@noahlz you're welcome! I prefer to learn from books, so I would suggest Mastering Endgame Strategy by Johann Hellsten or The Practical Endgame Bible by Boroljub Zlatanovic. Keep in mind that I have not read those books myself yet, but they both get excellent reviews. The first one includes exercises while the second is mostly examples.

@noahlz you're welcome! I prefer to learn from books, so I would suggest *Mastering Endgame Strategy* by Johann Hellsten or *The Practical Endgame Bible* by Boroljub Zlatanovic. Keep in mind that I have not read those books myself yet, but they both get excellent reviews. The first one includes exercises while the second is mostly examples.