White to move. Is this a loss or draw for White? How should White proceed?
8/5P2/4K3/8/8/8/8/3k1q2 w – – 0 1
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A free basic endgame course online! Enjoying this.
Draw after Ke7. No way to unhitch the king from the pawn, which will promote to a Q v. Q endgame.
Draw, the king moves to h8.
This is a draw because it is one of the Bishop pawns on the seventh rank. Rook and Bishop pawns draw because of stalemate tricks. In this case white can go to h8 and if Qxc7 is stalemate, so he can always renew the threat to queen. Only if the black K was very close could black win by allowing white to Queen but mating him anyway.
very interesting comments by ed.thx
Draw. The only problem that can arrise here, as I understand, if the black king were closer, to get the white king on the corner side of the pawn, and putting the king in front of the pawn allows the other king to advance, while going behind the pawn might hazard the black queen getting control of f8. When the king gets to the other side, it is a certain draw.
For a pawn on the seventh rank with it’s K supporting it, vs. Q and remotely located K, the a,c,f,and h pawns draw, whereas the b, d,e, and g pawns lose.
There are exceptions where the stronger side’s K is close to the weaker side’s K.
The general procedure for the stronger side is to use checks against the weaker side’s K to apprach with the Q. When close enough the Q may check in such a way that opposing the K must move in front of the pawn to preserve it.
This allows the stronger side a move to bring the K closer to the pawn. Repeat this until the K is close enough to force the win.
The procedure fails for the a and h pans because when the K moves in front of the pawn he will be in a stalemate position unless the stronger side moves the Q again.
It also fails for the f and c pawns because the weaker side’s K may take refuge on the corner square (a1, a8, h1 or h8 depending), and if the pawn is captured then it is stalemate.
The Q will then have to make a move to prevent the pawn from queening, and again the K will have no time to approach.