How to win in QvP endgames

This shows when the Queen and King can stop the pawn from promoting.

You're making the points that:

• Queen vs Pawn on 7th rank of a-, c-, f-, or h-files is usually drawn.
• Queen vs Pawn on 7th rank of b-, d-, e-, or g-files is usually won.
• Queen vs 2 Pawns is usually won.

If one's seeking to deepen their understanding, they might also explore:

• When is Q vs P on 7th rank on a-, c-, f-, or h-files won? The easy answer is when the attacker's king is nearby. But to really master this endgame one has to know how near is near enough, and that takes study.
  
• What happens (even on the 6th rank) when the queen has no good checks.

Then one can test their understanding with interesting positions. For example, in the below White can gain two tempi and then he's near enough to win.

yes, there are many more complicated variations of this endgame and I only scratched the surface, in answer to your test... Kg6 and Kf4 brings the king close enough.

In certain variations white may allow black to queen but must be very carful in order to force a win.

Ex

Here is a very interesting drawn endgame!

Yes, those are some interesting ones!

thanks!

just seems to me queen v pawn should almost always be won by queen side but im a novice so i guess im wrong

chris1011, you're correct, queen vs pawn is usually a winning advantage. The only tricky cases are the ones when the pawn is about to promote. That's why all the puzzles above (and most in endgame books) focus on a pawn on the 6th or 7th rank.

yeah