Analysis Example (Help for beginners)

As we try to improve at Chess, everyone tells us that we have to analyze positions and practice analyzing positions in order to get better.

If you consider correspondence games where you have great lengths of time to decide on your move, it seems clear that the best players in correspondence games are the best chess analysts.

A good chess analyst can look at a position and find the best move or a winning move after some time. A good chess player finds the best move in much less time.

One of my personal beliefs is that because chess is rooted in logic, specifically in causal relationships, then there has to always be a way to logicize the qualities of a position.

To be more clear, if we analyze a position and think for example that white is better, we should be able to clearly express why. The goal of analysis, for me, is to come to a qualitative determination about a position or a course of action that is based on concrete calculations and clear thinking.

I want to offer an analysis of a king and pawn endgame that occurred between Lasker and Tarrasch in 1914 to show the type of determinations based on calculation that I'm talking about and how you can apply it to your thought process in games or in analysis. 

In this position, Lasker is playing the white pieces and seems lost. Let's try to determine what would work for white here to draw the game.

Remember, we want to make concrete calculations that can be applied to a game.

1. Black wants to get a breakthrough and the fastest way he can Queen is in 6 moves, first by pushing the c pawn twice then pushing the a pawn. We see that white's king won't even be close to stopping this breakthrough just by approaching.

2. Now we know that if white had no h-pawn he could just resign the game because we calculated that the position is totally lost. If we can't find a way to use the H pawn to help us, we will have to resign. We know the H pawn takes 5 moves to queen and is unopposed by a pawn.

3. Now things are seeming clearer. In order to try and approach the black pawns, white must create a threat with his h pawn. Let's determine whether this threat can save white by deflecting the black king and winning tempos. Let's do this just by making observations.

The white king controls h6, h7 and h8, which means that if the pawn reaches h6 it will queen in two moves and white will win. However, when the pawn goes to h4, it attacks g5 and the white king controls g6 so the black king can ONLY stop the pawn on g5 by going to g4 immediately when the pawn is pushed. Otherwise, the king cannot approach the pawn in time once it reaches g5. We already know that the pawn must be stopped because black takes 6 pawn moves to queen and white only needs 4 more.

Now we want to figure out what square the white king needs to get to in order to stop black from queening. For this, we use simple addition and some visualization technique I suppose. 

I mentioned that it takes black 6 pawn moves to queen. ONE of those moves must be answered with a pawn capture by white after black pushes the c pawn to c3. So once the breakthrough starts, white has to be within five squares of h8. Put differently, black's breakthrough consists of SIX pawn moves. White must answer ONE of these moves with a pawn capture and answer the OTHER FIVE by approaching with his king. So working BACKWARDS, the king has to be able to reach a1 within FIVE moves at the moment that black plays the move c5. Now we can figure out WHAT SQUARE the king has to get to, and we see that if the king can get to f5 before black can play c5, he will reach a1 in time. Let's go over what we just determined.

1. The only move white can play from the initial position is h4. 

2. The closest square for the white king to reach so that he can stop the a pawn from queening on a1 is f5.

The final step is connecting these two ideas and getting the king to f5. When black plays Kg4 to stop the h-pawn, white needs to advance towards f5, very carefully!!! Right now the black king is defending f5, but if we can make the black king step away from f5, we can get there and draw the game. It turns out that the move Kg6!! achieves this. After Kg6, black cannot play a pawn move because white queens in 4 moves and is winning, so black MUST capture the h pawn and the white king reaches f5. 

Now that the white king is on f5 with black to play, we know already that black cannot promote! Tarrasch must have realized this too and the game finished as follows.

I hope you found this instructive. The goal of this is so that you can see my thought process and how to figure out a simple endgame but with some complex nuances. While GMs are obviously strong and talented players, the way we can strive to emulate them is by refining our thought process and logic and learning to calculate clearly and make determinations about a position. 

We first calculated that the breakthrough was on for black, we figured out where the king needed to be to stop it, and we figured out how to get the king there in time to stop the breakthrough and save a draw.

Thanks for reading and good luck.

My friend, I don't believe you are a beginner. Therefore you don't need beginner help...R.R.

Very nice explanations. Two things to add:

(1) Why does 1. h4 Kg4 2. Kf6 fail? It's the most natural move to approach the pawns, so we must take a look.

It's probably the first move to consider intuitively, and it's only because of the specifics of the position (pawn on c3) that white loses although he got into the square of the a-pawn.

(2) Counting moves is a lot easier if I borrow the concept of "initiative moves" from shogi. An "initiative move" is a move (or sequence) that you spend only one tempo on; if it's a sequence, your opponent's moves are all forced. I'll give examples:

A simple case of counting a sequence (g4 hxg3 e.p. hxg3) as one "move". Now we apply it to the Lasker-Tarrasch game:

Just my two cents' on the endgame.