Endgame: How to response when you have a queen and opponent’s pawn is ready to promote

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Avatar of jsaidoru
This is a very important in Queen vs. Pawn endgame. It happens quite often and you need to learn it. No more talking, let’s go into the lesson:

Example you have this position(We play as White):

White’s goal is to prevent the pawn from promoting, then take the pawn(sometimes) and checkmate(Read this article to find out how to mate with a Queen). Black’s goal is to promote the queen.
So how do we make progress?
The only way to prevent Black pawn from promoting is to make the Black king stand on the promoting square so the pawn can’t promote. Start with checks to force the king to the promoting square:
1.Qc6+
Black of course doesn’t want to block his own pawn, so he plays Kd3. We check again. Black retreats the King. Note that if 1…Kd3, then we just move the king over, because the pawn can’t promote. We then check again to force the black king to block his pawn.
(If 3…Kb1 then 4.Qd3+ Kc1 5.Qc3+ Kd1)
Now, because the black king has blocked the pawn, we can move the king closer(we call it a “free tempo”). Black moves the king away. We repeat the process until our king is close enough to checkmate/take the pawn.
Now that you’ve understand the theory, try set a custom position and do it
Feel free to ask any question! Have a nice day.

Avatar of Mudassir-Butt

Check out this beautiful game. https://youtu.be/cVt9-pFcXxs?si=ymkSNsbX8vq4Mrs2