Was this “caterpillar” strategy a good way to advance my pawns?

Question

I recently played an endgame as Black in which I thought up a silly, but effective, to advance my doubled pawns. Here is the relevant part of the game.

[FEN "8/6p1/2p2kp1/1p1p4/p2P2K1/P1P5/1P6/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kf4 g5+ 2. Kg4 g6 3. Kg3 Kf5 4. Kf3 g4+ 5. Kg3 g5 6. Kg2 Kf4 7. Kf2 g3+ 8. Kg2 g4

Then White ran out of time and I won.

We were both down to the seconds on the clock, and I thought that this was a good idea. That was because I thought, “Why must I think, when I can just herd the White king down the board is a systematic manner that saves me from wasting too much time on future thought?”

However, was my “caterpillar” plan really a good strategy in this endgame situation?

Answer 1

tl;dr: "Yes."

Discussion: Technically, this position is governed by the basic concept of the "Outside Passed Pawn" and the winning method is to use that pawn to restrict the opposing king's ability to defend the other pawns on the board.

The purest expression of that concept is in David's answer, which is to just use the one pawn and leave the other as a Damoclean Sword dangling over the head of your opponent's king.

But, given the special case of this situation (you actually have two outside passed pawns, not just one) you could also decide play it strictly as a single g-pawn endgame, but with tempo move in hand. To do this, you would use the caterpillar's "head" (the lead g-pawn) along with your king to drive the opposing king backwards to the back rank. (While doing this, when your king moves beside your pawn, keep it to the center -- f file -- side of your g-pawn.) When that is accomplished (let's say your K reaches f3, the pawn g3 and your opponent's K goes to f1 to prevent your king from advancing in front of the pawn) you simply push the g-pawn forward to g2 and when he moves to g1 to block the advance of the pawn, then you move the rearmost g-pawn from g7 to g6, leaving your opponent the choice of getting out of the way of your lead g-pawn and letting it queen, or moving one of his other pawns and letting you create a queen from one of your other pawns.

I would probably have played it that way, simply because it seems the least complicated to me, but there are multiple winning ideas in this position, and none of them are objectively better than any other.

Answer 2

Overall, that is totally fine, and it worked great. That said, without a detailed calculation of any promotion and stalemate possibilities on the k-side, the easiest win will be running to b2 and just queening the a-pawn since you may well have to do that anyway. That is best done with the p on g6 still far away, and white cannot ignore it, so he has to go take that first, and that is VERY slow.

My initial instinct was to run to b2 much earlier. It is simpler.

P.S. Also, as Taemyr first mentioned, and then OverlordAlex, there really is no stalemate threat since even if you get to g2+; Kg1 Kg3; white still has b3 ab; a4 b2; a5 b1=Q and mate. I should not have even worried about that.

  [FEN "8/6p1/2p2kp1/1p1p4/p2P2K1/P1P5/1P6/8 w - - 0 1"]

1. Kf4 g5+ 2. Kg4 g6 3. Kg3 Kf5 4. Kf3 g4+ 5. Kg3 Ke4 6. Kxg4 Kd3 7. Kg5 Kc2 8. Kxg6 Kxb2 9. Kf6 Kxa3 10. Ke6 Kb3 11. Kd6 a3 12. Kc6 a2 13. Kd5 a1=Q

Answer 3

White is in zugzwang so the basic idea of forcing white back using the pawns for extra tempos is perfectly correct.

You still need to figure out how to queen without stalemating but you have the right idea.

Answer 4

It was OK, but unnecessary. You could have left your "back" pawn on the starting square to make your opponent lose more time while going to capture it. Then you are free to go into the queenside to take all of his pawns.

The endgame is easily won anyway so there is no one road do victory, though. For instance, you could end up with your pawns leaving the White king with no moves, forcing him to give his panws away (but beware of stalemate!)

Answer 5

It was a very sensible strategy. You never have to worry about stalemate because at the key moment, like round about now, your king can head over to the queenside to take the pawns on b2 and a3 and then queen your a pawn while your opponent is busy taking your g pawns.

Answer 6

From the end position without the queenside pawns White can move to g1, claim the opposition, and have a draw. If you had just advanced the front g pawn until it got to g3 you would have g6 available to take the opposition and queen the front g pawn.

Answer 7

Your strategy was good. The best idea would be to stalemate White's king, and then to wait for White to lose a pawn by force. Then, you promote and checkmate Black's king easily.