Pillsbury's Great King-and-Pawn Endgame, Part 1

A note from FunMasterMike: I hosted one of my mini-camps this past weekend and many kids with very high ratings entered king-and-pawn endings but made mistakes along the way. These endings may seem easy but they can be very difficult. So I pulled this excellent article out of the archives for you to read today!

Hi Readers!

In today's article, I will show you an amazing endgame with just kings and pawns. King-and-pawn endgames may seem simple, since there are no powerful queens, speedy rooks, or tricky knights to deal with. But in fact king-and-pawn endgames are the most tricky of all. The reason is that whether you win, draw, or lose can depend on a single move, or a tiny difference in the placement of the pieces.

This game was played in the last - and crucial - round of the Hastings 1895 tournament, the greatest tournament which had ever been held up to that time. This tournament had all of the best players of that time - Chigorin, Lasker, Steinitz and Tarrasch - as well as many other great masters. Everyone wanted to know if the newly-crowned world champion, Emanuel Lasker, was really the best player in the world.

It turned out that a nearly unknown player from America, Harry Nelson Pillsbury, was leading by half a point when the last round started. There was a new star in the chess world! Pillsbury thought that a draw in his last game, against Isidor Gunsberg, would be enough to win the tournament. But as the game went on, he saw that his rival, Mikhail Chigorin, was winning his game - so if Pillsbury drew, Chigorin would tie with him for first. At this point, Pillsbury realized he had to win, and found a magical way to do it.

 

The black pawn on a5 is attacking White's knight on b4. If the knight just retreats, then Black will get his knight to c6, blockading the passed pawn. Then he would face no danger. But Pillsbury had forseen this and more!

 

The knights have been traded, so now we have the promised king-and-pawn endgame. Here is where we will leave off for now:

You could easily imagine White simply resigning here. The black king can quickly catch and capture White's e-pawn, which has strayed from the flock. If that happens, an experienced player will win the endgame with an extra pawn.

But Pillsbury, despite being one of the best blindfold chess players ever, did not go into this position with his eyes closed ! He had a plan to save his e-pawn and then win the game. See if you can find it, and check out the rest of the ending next week in Pillsbury's Great King-and-Pawn Endgame, Part 2. So long for now!