I have a lot of trouble with the that winning with an extra pawn thing in the computer workout, but in a game of online chess i have advanced my pawn to g2 with a QUEEN on me and all i have is my king, a pawn, and a useless pawn that can't move because of his king. why is this so easy? (the guy i'm playing against isn't even bad; his ranking is around 1400, while mine is 1100)

We can't discuss an ongoing game, sorry.

does it at least make any sense that it's easier? can that be discussed?

Basically the game feels easier than the puzzle because the puzzle punishes you when you get it wrong. Details can wait until the game has ended :-)

ok i'm about to lose because he's blocked my pawn. i'll tell you when i'm done

alright i just resigned. he started to bring his king to the fight...

Ok, you lost. I can't post diagrams from this computer (popups don't work...) but after 46...hxg5 you are clearly lost.

Basically, White can always capture your a-pawn because the king is within the square; your king can't leave the square of white's h-pawn because otherwise it queens. Even if your king walks around and captures white's g-pawn, that doesn't matter because queen vs g-pawn is always lost, unless the pawn can immediately promote.

Now of course he took his time winning, but he did use the right plan and never gave you any chance whatsoever (in the pawn endgame - of course you were winning before).

So why would you say it was easier?

i mean it was easier to get my pawn near the end. i didnt mean that it was easier to win

Your king was in front of the pawn, and he had no pieces near it; in the Mentor puzzle, his king was probably in front of the pawn you were trying to promote, so you had to get it out of the way.

Of course he didn't have to let it go all the way to g2, something like 57.Qf6+ Ke3 58.Qe5+ Kf3 59.Qf5+ Kg3 and your pawn is halted. But it didn't really matter.

45... g5 was the losing move (in addition to what your opponent played, it also loses to 46 hg).  If instead you had played 45... Kf7 you would have a winning endgame.