King and pawn versus king endgame

The chess endgame with a king and a pawn versus a king is one of the most important and fundamental endgames, other than the basic checkmates.^[1] It is an important endgame for chess players to master, since most other endgames have the potential of reducing to this type of endgame via exchanges of pieces. Players need to be able to determine quickly whether a given position is a win or a draw, and to know the technique for playing it. The crux of this endgame is whether or not the pawn can be promoted (or queened), so checkmate can be forced.

In the first paragraph of one of his books on endgames, Peter Griffiths emphasized the importance of this endgame:

There is simply no substitute to a clear understanding of when and how these positions are won or drawn, not only so that one can play them accurately, but in order to recognize in advance what the correct result should be. If you can do that, you can exchange off quite confidently from a more complex position.^[2]

In the positions in which the pawn wins, at most nineteen moves are required to promote the pawn (with optimal play) and at most nine more moves to checkmate, assuming that the pawn was promoted to a queen.^[3]

Except for the section on defending and some actual games, it will be assumed that White has a king and pawn and Black has a lone king. In general, Black should place their king in the path of the pawn to try to prevent its promotion.