The battle for promotion

 I like my views holistic. Because that helps to reduce vagueness. If any author wants me to play an active move, than a holistic view helps me to reason what he might be talking about.

In order to build up a holistic view, I realized that I must start at the beginning.

Sorry for the kings on the board. But the best program for arrows on the board (Lucas chess) doesn't allow for positions without kings.

What is specific for the endgame?

• there is an extra attacker on the board (the pawn)
• there is an extra target on the board (the promotion square, the 4th sitting duck)
• there is a special line of attack (LoA)

This terminology gives new meaning to the term "activity". Piece activity can now be measured in terms of influence on these three points of application. This gives rise to the possible scenarios:

• to attack the pawn
• to clear or block the LoA

It introduces the battle for promotion.

The past two weeks I did a lot of research in order to decide how to approach the endgame. I looked at the games of the Tata Steel Chess tournament lately. And I noticed how much the eval bar is swinging in pure pawn endings at grandmaster level and below. Which made me decide to start with pure pawn endings in order to build my own schematic thinking.

Only when the schemes of pawn endings are crystal clear, it is time to introduce the pieces that can battle for promotion.