Chess Summer School Day 12. We’re going to close our key king and pawn endings lessons with a tragedy that befell Edward Lasker years ago. What would be your move here?

1.f6! [Lasker played 1.f4, forgetting that 1…f6 sets up the impregnable pawn wall that a 4 on 3 majority on just three files cannot do anything with. Thus, Black easily wins by stopping the white pawns and just wandering over and vacuuming them up as White has to get the black passed pawn.] 1...gxf6 2.f4 Kd4 3.g5 fxg5 4.fxg5 Ke5 5.gxh6 Kf6 6.Kc2 1–0 as Black can’t get to the White pawns and the white kings can now gobble up the black passed pawn and then come over and help the pawn queen on the h-file.

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