Premove Mating Technique K+Q vs K

Hi,

we all know how to mate with K+Q vs K. I remember reading in my first chess book by Awerbakh that the easiest way to fend the king off, is to put your queen a knight-move away from the king, till the king has only one file left.

Now I was wondering what the fastest premove technique is to mate with K+Q vs K. Say you have only 2 seconds left and need to use premove, but at the same time make sure that your queen isn't captured by the king. What is a nice way to force mate regardless of your opponents moves? Any suggestions?

As soon as you force the opponent king to the 'a' or 'h' file or the 1st or 8th rank then you can pretty much pre-move all moves upto mate without worrying about losing the queen by accident. But when the opponent's king is in the center it has two moves in most of the time until its forced to the corner.

Premove using the king

Exactly! That ensures that your queen won't be captured.

If the difference is not that large, I find it is often easier to just premove your pieces without even trying to mate (e.g.: Walk queen in steps of one and king follows after) in an erratic fashion.

Because you never have to answer any checks, you can premove as much as you want while your opponent will occasionally have his/her premoves ruined by unexpected checks. This will almost always cause your opponent to run out of time.

Here's one pattern... I think of it like a trap door hehe. King is on one side, queen on the other.

Of course, make sure you cut off the largest number of squares you can early on, as with the first move of this next one.

Here's one more. Notice the king is pushing him toward the queen, or the queen is pushing him toward the king. Eventually the pattern in the first diagram is reached as the black king is forced down the trap door.

I have a technique for doing this.  Bring your K and Q together up the board, only playing the Q to squares protected by the K.

If you bring your Q to the bishop-3 square (c3,c6,f3,c6) square with check, and it's protected, your opponent's K must go to the back rank next move.  Wait to see which back rank it goes to, then play your Q to cut it off.  This is the only non-premove you need to make.  Next, premove your K up to the bishop-3 square that your Q gave check on, and then you will have mate in 1.

(edit - not in response to GCB, I like his idea)
With 2 seconds left, it's going to be sloppier than this because to play it really well you have to avoid stalemate. But it's just the general idea of a queen controlling one side, the king controlling the other, and the enemy king is forced down between them.

Usually whenever their king touches the edge, I put my queen on the 3rd (rank or file) to keep them there, then premoving all the rest is really easy. For example in the first diagram I'd play 4.Qb2.

Thanks all for the hints!