I think this looks drawish with "perfect play", but If you want I'll crunch the position with a higher power, when I get a chance. Maybe you should have played Qf6 on your "second" move, freeing your center pawns to start marching, yet still keeping an eye on his b pawn. Or maybe Qd4, still staying on the a1-h8 diagonal.
Heavy Piece Ending: At a Loss for a Plan
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I didn't look at this close, but here is an analysis by H3, over 6 hours total (300 second per ply time control): Draw. I didn't use my 6-man tablebases, but 5 man-Gaviota, since I have those on faster SSD, and I suspected this would be a draw anyway.
Qe5 targeting b2 is nice. I'm surprised he went with passive defense. Qc1 just makes it harder for white.
By the way, with such an open king, I think this should be a draw. I'd try to push my queenside. Also with active pieces in a heavy endgame like this you should be "trying to do something" i.e. try to make every move count.
So after 27...Qe5 28.Qf8 makes much more sense IMO.
If 27...Qe5 28.Qc1 I like 28...Rd3 with the idea of Rb3 to win the b pawn and push the c pawn. This makes it hard for white to defend. A computer may coldly calculate a defense (never missing a perpetual or tactic). But I think black definitely has some practical chances.
Yes, white should try to push his passed pawn.
The following position comes from a recent tournament game where I had the black pieces. After a tough middlegame, the smoke cleared and we were left with the following heavy piece endgame. I was running low on time and had problems formulating a plan. I played 1...Qe5 with the idea of centralizing my queen and forcing a white piece to be tied down to a passive spot defending the b2 pawn. After 2. Qc1 I started a campaign of dithering with 2...Qe2, which reached its climax with me blacking out and hanging my queen about 8 moves later.
Looking at this a week later without the pressure of a clock, I'm still at a loss for a proper way to handle this position. As I see it the main features here are that black has the more active pieces and thus a mild initiative, but white has the passed h-pawn which could potentially become dangerous. Black probably needs to try to create a passed pawn on the queenside to have a long-term trump card in his hand if/when his initiative dissipates.
So my questions for the chess.com universe are:
Basically I'm just fishing for thoughts on this position, and hoping that it will provide good fodder for discussion.
(And so that the record is clear in case this becomes a vehicle for any of the standard chess.com flame wars, I resigned immediately after hanging my queen and I told my opponent "good game" afterwards.)