Playing against the Isolated Pawn.

I have some questions about the document

7.8. Isolated Pawn - How to play against it

1.1 King Endgames. It mentions to put the pawn on f5/b6 so you can Ke6-d6, but I do not see why. The alternative mentioned was to put the pawns on b5 and f6 to Kc6-d6. Again, I am not sure why.

1.3 Knight Endgame. A diagram is shown an a comment is made that white can't hold a king on d4 because black can check there anytime. Problem is that black is in no position to check d4.

Am I missing something?

BorgQueen wrote:I have some questions about the document

7.8. Isolated Pawn - How to play against it

1.1 King Endgames. It mentions to put the pawn on f5/b6 so you can Ke6-d6, but I do not see why. The alternative mentioned was to put the pawns on b5 and f6 to Kc6-d6. Again, I am not sure why.

I don't get the material until next week.

But not knowing what I'm talking about never stopped me before ...so let me make a wild guess that this is a "floating square" pawn ending problem in which a king must stop two isolated passed pawns.

If it's not in the material, and you're not familiar with the rule it goes like this:

"If a square whose two corners are occupied by pawns on the same rank reaches the edge of the board, then one of those pawns must queen"

If the square does not reach the edge of the board, then the king can hold the pawns. If there are two files between the pawn, the king can capture both; if the distance is any greater, he can only prevent their future advance."

1.1 King Endgames. It mentions to put the pawn on f5/b6 so you can Ke6-d6, but I do not see why. The alternative mentioned was to put the pawns on b5 and f6 to Kc6-d6. Again, I am not sure why.

The pawn on b6 doesn't allow the white king to go to c5 so the black king can move from e6 to d6 and viceversa. Then black need a pawn on f5 because if white put a pawn there the black king can't move to e6 and zugwang may follow.

1.3 Knight Endgame. A diagram is shown an a comment is made that white can't hold a king on d4 because black can check there anytime. Problem is that black is in no position to check d4

Forget the diagram, what you need to know is when the white king moves to d4 you check it next move with your knight.

Thanks Tweety - Well explained! Simple once you know!

Pawn, nice guess, but I think you are talking about something completely different!

actually the whole thing is based on key-squares of entry ,square pairs and the antidote of the defending side against a perpetual Zugzwang .
I have not seen the diagram yet but I know the ideas involved in it as I have read similar theory in a nice book by Iossif dorfman (THE METHOD IN CHESS)
there he explains all these theories in detail.the concept's i mentioned above are exactly the special features of the pawn endgames which has attracted many endgame position creators.
for the second question I must tell it highlights the advantages of knight in the endgame.It can attack any square on the bord so whites king cannot find a permanent square for itself

Ashraf

Mohammad Ashraf wrote:actually the whole thing is based on key-squares of entry ,square pairs and the antidote of the defending side against a perpetual Zugzwang .

Wow, that sounds impressive!

Mohammad Ashraf wrote:for the second question I must tell it highlights the advantages of knight in the endgame.It can attack any square on the bord so whites king cannot find a permanent square for itself

Yes, a knight can attack any square, but it can also be slow, so it can be hard to tell which is better -- a knight or a bishop. I know that generally a bishop is better if there are pawns on both sides of the board.

BorgQueen wrote:Yes, a knight can attack any square, but it can also be slow, so it can be hard to tell which is better -- a knight or a bishop. I know that generally a bishop is better if there are pawns on both sides of the board.

That, plus the fact that the knight is limited by it's inability "lose" a move where there is otherwise a zugzwang situation.