Dan Heisman's Improve Your Chess
Critical K&P Endgame Moves Played Instantly
National Master Dan Heisman is a name that is synonymous with excellence in chess coaching and teaching. Dan authors the award-winning Novice Nook column (winner of three Chess Journalists of America "Best Instruction" awards), aimed at improving adults, for chesscafe.com that are clearly written and offer very practical advice and tips on how to improve your game . In the new Improve Your Chess series, Dan provides instruction by reviewing amateur games played on ICC and showing where the players went wrong and how to improve.
Today's show: White misses several thematic tactics near the end of the opening and instead ends up losing a pawn. In a bishop of opposite colored middlegame Black simply hands back the pawn into an even endgame. White then fails to find the answer to flawed trap and ends up losing a piece for two pawns. However, Black is unable to find the right path to victory and settles for a drawn king and pawn endgame. Despite the fact that both sides had been playing at a reasonable pace, they incomprehensibly speed up in the king and pawn endgame. First Black blunders into a loss but White immediately blunders back into the draw, so draw it was.