Fortunately, thanks to Silman's Endgame Course, most of this was easy for me as I already knew most of this material.
Test Exercises:
Exercises 4-1 thru 4-5
All fairly easy. Some I knew immediately and one or two I had to think about for a minute, knowing the winning idea but calculating to double check.
Exercise 4-6 (two stars)
I thought I had the answer to this one. I moved the King first, and after black moves I moved the pawn up, calculating that all variations afterward were winning for me.
UNLESS...black moves his pawn first. So...oops.
Exercise 4-7 (two stars)
Now this position I've not seen before, so I'll need to set it up on the board for sure...
Okay, took me just a minute to solve. Very cool position. A good one to share with your chess buddies.
Exercise 4-8 (three stars)
Hmmm, so I hope this isn't actually winning for white, because I'm currently looking for a way to just draw!
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there is no chance of winning. Even the draw is quite tricky. White has to delay the capture of black's a pawn for as long as necessary. Well, what needs to happen is that he captures it with opposition. Otherwise black will win.
Kb3 ... a2
Kb2! ... Kb4!
Ka1! ... and black can no longer come forward without stepping outside the square of white's pawn, so he must capture either the a or c pawn. When he does, you will push your other pawn, requiring him to take back with his pawn. After capturing his a pawn next, you'll be able to position your king to gain opposition later.
Awesome exercise!!! This one took me as much time as all the others combined thus far.
Exercise 4-9 (three stars)
The only other three-star problem in the set.
This one contains the exact same idea as the last position. Black will get two squares in front of his pawn if you go the normal route. You have to sac your pawn first in order to secure a draw. Then after ...fxe5
Kc1 then Kd1, only moving forward to the second rank once the black king steps forward, that way you can gain opposition. If at that point he plays e4 instead, then you can play Ke2 and black will never get to the Promised Land.
Full points.
Exercise 4-10 (two stars)
Fairly easy. Took me maybe a minute.
Kg5 ... Kg8? (loses opposition)
Kg5 ... Kh8
Kh6! (Kxg6? throws away the win) ... g5 (don't fall for the trap!)
Instead play f7! and it's mate next move.
Exercise 4-11 (one star)
Very easy.
Exercise 4-12 (one star)
Saw the pawn move h4 right away. Necessary to buy time for positioning our King. Then Kd3, Ke2, Kf1, and black cannot queen his pawn.
My Score: 20/22 "Excellent"
(I missed 4-6)
Conclusion:
The work I did with Silman's Endgame Course paid off! While I spent 4-5 hours on the last chapter, I probably spent 1 hour max on this one.
Studying works.
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