All variations?

Qb1?

If ..Kc5, Qb7, Kc4 then Qd5#

If ..Kd4, Qb5, Ke4 then Qd5#

Qa3 isnt solution, this is

If Qa3? Not Kd4??, black plays Kb5! and survives for 6 moves.

intense, you made it look so simple now that i see the solution, i really wish i could have figured it out on my own, just seemed so hard lol, seems like i need to just sit down and study mating nets.

When mating alone king, aim is to cut squares for him, not to give check, because then he will escape. It is much different than middlegame Checkmate, there you just check, check check and mate! :), here in endgames it is like, cut, cut, cut, mate!

yeah, when i was looking at it after* the first time i figured the queen needed to be on a white square to cut him off but i never thought queen b1 which is the only obvious square to keep the b file closed and block off d3 lol. im going to continue to look at mate in #s to continue my study of the net :D

Oh yes! i didnt see Qd6, sorry :) you were right

The starting point is to look for mating nets.

In this case, you're unable to get the black King on to a back row, so it must occur in the middle of the board.. and a Queen on d5 would give you the coverage you need, so it's a case of working out how you can end up there in 3 moves without the black King escaping.

I solved it by working out how to stop the king escaping to d3 then to e2.