Queen against Pawn!

Can a pawn on the seventh rank take down a mighty queen? Let’s dive into this game-changing strategy!

Here we have a basic position from this commonly-reached endgame. White is up a queen, but the black pawn is constantly threatening to promote. The purpose of this first lesson is not to show how to win (which you should already know from the video!) but to show how easily one can go wrong. If this seems too basic, don’t worry; things will get much harder very soon!

Black was threatening to promote the pawn. That would lead to a draw. This is one way to stop the pawn from queening.

The defender can never let the white queen go in front of the pawn. If Black played any other move, White would play 2.Qe1. That would stop the pawn forever and give White time to bring up the king.
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Now Black is threatening to promote the pawn again since e1 is supported by the black king. Go forward to see how White proceeds.

White must check the black king to deny Black time to promote.

Take note: the black king does not want to go to e1. If it does, Black won’t be threatening to promote the pawn, and white will have time to bring the king up.
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Let’s continue. We witness how hard it is for White to make progress when he/she must always stop the pawn from queening! We need a plan…

Once again, Black was threatening to queen the pawn. White stops it by moving the queen behind it.

Black renews the threat to queen the pawn.
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Move forward and see how White deals with the renewed threat to promote.

Pinning the pawn is another way to stop promotion.

Once again, Black threatens to queen the pawn.
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Move forward to see White’s latest attempt to stop the pawn. At this point, all of White’s moves are random other than to stop the pawn from queening.

White checks the black king. Otherwise the pawn would queen. Note that checks on the first rank (e.g. Qg1+) could be met by …e1=Q.

As always, Black wants to queen the pawn.
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How can White make progress here? Of course, you’ve seen the technique in the video, so let’s move onto the next question position and try it ourselves!

Tirelessly, White continues to check the black king.

Black still wants to queen the pawn. We can stop here. Has White made any progress? NO! In order to win the game, White must bring the king up while preventing the pawn from queening. The next two lessons will demonstrate how this can be accomplished.