Queen vs Bishop Pawn: Winning Beside the Corner

Watch the method: press play to see the winning idea run, or step through it move by move.

The bishop pawn is the drawish one, until your king is close. A lone queen cannot beat a bishop pawn on the seventh by herself: the corner stalemate keeps saving the defender. The win only appears when the attacking king is near enough to add the missing tempo.

The winning zone is a pair of squares. When the defending king sits on the right side, next to the promotion corner, the zone shrinks to almost nothing. You win only if your king is one step from a key square, here g6 or e7. Start with the pin along the seventh rank, spend your one tempo to reach g6, and the stalemate trick never gets going.

In this drill the pawn will promote and it will not matter. With your king on g6 the escape squares are gone: a new queen is met by Qh7 mate, and a knight promotion with check only delays the end. Move your king one square farther away and the same position is a draw.