Checkmate with Knight + Bishop

Dang idk this crap..never got in this situation..and hopefully never will

i hate this checkmate. now i know not to attempt to draw like this vs you

Sorry guys but can't resist this :) see here, 90 sec in a tournament, with lots of mistakes and dead ends along the way!

I just learned how to checkmate with B+N today! Feels awesome

Great Retrodanny, practice it 5 min a day till you've got it in your sleep, then once a week or so to keep it fresh... the Women's World Champ once famously drew a game because she'd forgotten whatever method she must have learnt; if it should come up, you'll be glad of it!

At this one tournament, there was a game (B+N) between two experts, and they had to agree to a draw because the player with the bishop and knight did not know how to checkmate.

Hey, I actually just recorded a video, showing how to checkmate with knight and bishop. I think the technique I'm showing is a little bit easier to remember and play in a real game than what is shown in the example above. I hope this video helps!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWwuy-aiK1M

I have had to do this twice, and did it both times.  I use Lasker's technique.

This is...hard? I have done this mate 100 times. Let's see... (Some corrections by Shredder. Originally corrected by me, then corrected by Shredder and noted. If move prolongs mate by more than 1 move, that is also noted.)

thank you chesscoaching

While this is interesting and fun, for most chess players it is not essential knowledge.  I have played chess for 66 years and not once has this ending come up.

[am not saying it is a waste of time to learn this ending]

wow u are very lucky

I had a game a couple of weeks ago that I was playing with a friend where I could have traded into this kind of endgame.  It is very uncommon but definitely possible.

nice

That's the best YouTube video I've seen of the B + N mate: good job! The main problem with all YouTube videos (and even books) about that mate is that they don't give generalities, only a single line, so if your opponent doesn't play the book move, it's hard to know what to do. In contrast, you gave some good general patterns of how to force the king back using that awkward piece combination.

Some minor suggestions about that video: (1) That constant pop-up window appearing over the board is annoying, so if you could remove that, that would help the video. (2) If there exists a fixed number (it looks like about four, from your video) of configurations that the K-B-N assume during the middle board procedure, it would be good to explicitly list those, and maybe to give them names. I was actually planning to make a video similar to yours with suggestion (2) implemented.

I think people get way too worked up over this endgame.  It really isn't very hard if you know a few tricks:

very good thanks

Glad to help!

This illustrates a problem that crops up with computers from time to time.  Black makes it too easy for White by sitting on the back rank while White saunters up because to the computer all moves that result in mate in 27 are equal.  In practical play, one wants to make a human opponent work to get you into the "wrong" corner for the bishop.  Putting the Black king on e3, e4 or e5 might prove to be more educational...