Unclear blunder in a queen and pawns endgame.

Hi,

I recently played a game where I got a queen endgame that I believed should be winning.

On move 28 I blundered with e4 when I should have pushed immediately on the queenside instead. When I analyzed the game on my own, I thought that maybe it was wrong due to being too loosening and allowing for a perpetual later, but the engine line for Black after e4 is unclear to me. My idea playing e4 at the time was to push f6 and threaten mate to force Black's queen back, and then push the queenside pawns.

Although I won the game, the position at the end was actually a draw. How should I work on improving my play in these kinds of positions? I only know a few basic things about queen endgames that apply most of the time:

1. Setup the pawns around your king to avoid perpetual check, if you are up material (why I played f4).
2. How far advanced a pawn is or whether it's passed is more important than the number of pawns.
3. Having the initiative is super important in queen endgames since it's easy to fall into a perpetual check if your king isn't well secured.

I have a hard time calculating here when there seems to be lots of viable moves, so more variations to consider than in the typical middlegame I get.

"Setup the pawns around your king to avoid perpetual check, if you are up material (why I played f4)."

Sound advice. The problem though is that a lot of times you'll be needing your king's assistance to queen a pawn (so it will end up having to come out into the open after all).

"On move 28 I blundered"

• Yes, 28 a5 creates a passed pawn.

"I have a hard time calculating"

• It is not easy.