Note that if the kings were on the king side, the key squares would be f5, g5, and h5. In order to win the pawn in front of your own pawn, you must reach any of the key squares.
That’s because the king can either keep the white king trapped, or oscillate back and forth on g8 and h8 until the pawn advances too far and the game is drawn. In the case of the rook (h) pawn, black can always draw if the king makes it to f8. The key squares for white in this instance are g7 and g8, because we need to stop black from getting to g8 and h8 in front of the pawn.Ī key square must also be reached for a defender to secure a draw. With less space on the edge of the board, there are less opportunities to win for white. Black will not be able to occupy it as white will take the diagonal opposition, followed by the opposition, and win the key square. This is the only winning move because white is aiming for b5, which will take 4 moves. We take the furthest route in order to achieve this In this example, the only way to win is to outflank your opponent. White needs to occupy any one of the key squares. In this example, black just needs to stay ahead of the pawn to either force the white pawn to advance (thus advancing the key squares by another rank) or maintaining opposition.Įxample of how white gets to the key square If white is to move, then the opposition is maintained because white has a spare tempo of d4. If black is to move, the opposition must be given up. Here white has occupied a keysquare and has the opposition. The reason these are key squares is because you will be able to take the opposition, or force zugzwang, because of the spare tempo. The white king must reach the key squares to win. If you just have one pawn, the key squares are two ranks ahead of your own pawn. Key Squares of a Single Pawn with no pawns blocking its path Some of the more advanced puzzles you’ll see in this article may seem hard to understand the goal at first, but if we think about the key square we are trying to occupy, it becomes easier to understand.
There are some instances where capturing the pawn doesn’t win as we will see, but the defender must play perfectly in these cases to draw. There are key squares in other types of endgames, but for the purposes of this guide, this will be our definition.
In pawn endgames, key squares are squares that, when occupied by your king, the game can be won because a pawn will be captured. This topic was written about more in depth in this article I wrote What is a Key Square? If the king steps outside of the square in our more advanced pawn studies, we will be able to determine that the attacking side (with the pawn) will win. If the black king can step into the square before the pawn moves, then the king is in time to stop the pawn from queening. You will always be able to make a square with all four sides being the number of squares from the queening square. Then count 4 squares to the right from the queening square, then down 4 squares, then 4 squares back to the pawn itself. The square tells you at a glance whether or not the pawn will queen, or if the king can catch the pawn in time on its own.Ĭount the number of squares your pawn is away from the queening square (in this case 4 squares). This article is meant to help you understand every aspect of pawn endgames and all of the secrets and invisible moves that arise.īefore we talk about anything advanced, it’s important to touch base on the rule of the square. Rook endgames are the most common in OTB tournament games, but they can transpose into winning pawn endames if you understand the fundamentals of these types of endgames. Pawn endgames are one of the most difficult chess endgames to master.