Queen and Pawn vs Queen: The Perpetual Check Draw

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

Queen and pawn versus queen is the most drawish of all the heavy-piece endings. A single queen produces so many checks that the attacker usually cannot shelter his king long enough to promote.

The heading rule. Get the defending king planted squarely before the pawn and the half point is usually there for the taking. Everything else in the defence is a way of buying time to reach that.

Perpetual check. Checking is the tool that stops the pawn from advancing. Each check should either lead to another check or bring your king closer to the blockading square.

Material is not the point. In Botvinnik vs Tal (Moscow 1960) Black drew this exact position with f5+ Kg5 Qxg3+ Kxf5, taking a pawn and handing one back to reduce White to a single d-pawn, then checking until the king reached the front of it. Do not refuse a simplification just because it looks greedy.

Two more defensive weapons. The first is the quiet move. When the attacker's king and queen already sit on their best squares, any move he makes must worsen something, so a calm move of your own, no check at all, can be the one that seals the draw. Checks are the tool, not the religion. The second is a warning: let your king get chased off the pawn and the checks run out fast while the king drifts from safety. In front of the pawn, even trading queens is usually fine; away from it, guard the shelter with your life.

In this drill you are a pawn down and must hold. Stop the checks before the king is safe or the blockade is set, and the passed pawn decides.