can you check mate with just a bishop and a king with no chance of getting a queen moving a pawn when thats all each player has and how long can it go on for when one player doe'sen't want to draw

50 moves without promotion or a change in pieces on the board is a draw as well

thank you for your help chrisie

If your question is: can you mate when the ONLY material on the board is:

one side has K+B, and the other has just K, then NO, you cannot mate, ever, even without the 50 move rule. There is just no mate position.

 

 

If either side has more material on the board. It depends on it, of course. 

cannot mate with a single minor piece or with 2 knights.

I hear it is very difficult to mate with just 2 bishops.

 

someone correct if i'm wrong.

Checkers, I think for most people mating with 2 bishops is easier than mating with Bishop and Knight.

one knight,one bigshop or even two knight they will be stalemate!

bastiaan wrote: 50 moves without promotion or a change in pieces on the board is a draw as well

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Or 50 moves without a pawn move.

FIDE 9.6: The game is drawn when a position is reached from which a checkmate cannot occur by any possible series of legal moves, even with the most unskilled play. This immediately ends the game, provided that the move producing this position was legal.

 

If K+B vs K is all that is left, the game ends immediately--it's a draw. 

 

checkers4me> cannot mate with a single minor piece or with 2 knights.

 

Correct, if neither side has any other material. Two knights... and rarely even one knight... can mate an opposing K+P.  ;)

 

checkers4me> I hear it is very difficult to mate with just 2 bishops.

 

If you've never done them before, they can be challenging, especially under time pressure. The good news is, they only take a little time to master. Mastering the B+B mate or B+N mate is much, much easier than mastering, say K+R+P vs K+R.

yeah, king+knight vs king is a draw, as well as king+bishop vs king. i once was at a tournament where one guy sacrficed his knight to achieve the former, and if the rule that ended the game immediately was not there, he would have flagged. so this can be helpful.

Now that I know mating with 2 bishops (no jokes please) isn't as tough as I thought, I will go work on it.

So much endgame material to learn....

i believe two knights or two bishop can mate ive seen that happen!

I heard that it was possible to mate with two knights, but it is unforced.

Yea, King and bishop, or King and knight, with no other material support is impossible to mate opponent's King.  Must have at least one other piece available to work the mate pattern.  Even one extra pawn in support (if the pawn is fortunate enough to be in the right position), makes it possible to mate with a King/bishop or King/knight combination...

Likeforests:

You wrote:

If you've never done them before, they can be challenging, especially under time pressure. The good news is, they only take a little time to master. Mastering the B+B mate or B+N mate is much, much easier than mastering, say K+R+P vs K+R.

 

Well, do you know of any good resources forteaching these endgames?  I run a HS chess club and havn't anything to use as a resource here.

Considering your audience, I think the best explanation of these mates can be found in Pandolfini's Endgame Course. Pandolfini's method is basically to begin with a simple mate-in-two, and then slowly work towards general positions. He explains the B+B mate in 4 diagrams and the B+N mate in 9 diagrams. 

 

As far as a teaching method, after either giving those positions as homework or explaining them in class, one method chess teacher Polly Wright uses (her kids are younger) is to let each student try to mate her and give an award (medal, ribbon--these can be really simple plastic things) to the one who accomplishes it the fastest.

 

I hope that helps.  Glad to hear you're taking the time to teach kids.  :)

ares and Sunshiny - two knights cannot produce mate in real play - there is a mate position that can be set up on the board with K+N+N vs K, but it cannot legally be arrived at in real play without a stalemate occuring first - when that is all the material that is left on the board it is declared a draw

Sure there is: by the Chess Mentor I found this: mate with King and two bishops angainst King alone, but I remember it isn't simple to do !

Friendly greetings,

Herman

Two knights can mate only, if the other side has at least 1 pawn.

Two bishops can mate vs lone king quite easily.

Bishop and a Knight vs lone King can mate,but it's quite difficult.