Instructive Ending

     I recently came across the following ending that is quite interesting. The position is from one of my correspondence games from back in the Fischer Era and it opened with the then popular Exchange Variation of the Ruy Lopez; the Exchange Variation was popular because Fischer had been using it. The game was played in the finals of Chess Review’s U.S. Open Correspondence Championship and my opponent was, at that time, a strong (2300-plus, or low 2400 rated OTB Master) and was on the top ten list of U.S. correspondence players.
     In the game I erred in taking a defensive attitude and retreated my K to the defense of the Q-side P’s. I should have aggressively pursued creating my own passer on the K-side which would have drawn. I mistakenly believed my defensive stance lead to a draw.
     As it turned out, my opponent sent me a move based on a recording error that lost immediately and as soon as his error was confirmed he was going to resign, but I offered a draw instead.  Not realizing my position was lost, I thought a draw was a legitimate outcome. Besides, he had a lot more to lose than I did to gain. The rating points he lost on the draw alone knocked him out of the top ten and the points dropped had he lost would have been catastrophic; even the draw cost points that it would take years for him to regain. Offering a draw seemed the right thing to do. Besides that, just as we had sent out our first move I met him at an OTB tournament in Chicago and he was a genuinely nice guy.