Today I got my first checkmate with knight, bishop, and king vs king. As I going home, however, my dad asked an interresting question - In grandmaster play, is the checkmate forced? You have to take the 50 moves into question, but with the current high ranked play is this the case?

Yes, from what I've learned the knight, bishop, and king vs king ending is one of the basic checkmate in chess. And in every starting position (except if the opponent King can capture one of our pieces) we can always checkmate the black king in at most 33 moves (If I am not mistaken). You can learn the basic checkmate in the book "Basic Chess Ending" by Reuben Fine. It's said that there are 2 steps to checkmate with knight and bishop.

The first step is to bring the opponent King to the corner of the opposite colour of our bishop. And the second step is to bring him to the corner with the same colour with our bishop.

Well, me myself  still have problem with the first step..., haha

Nevertheless, tricky.  I don't think I could do it under real world conditions.  Gone into at length in Pandolfini's Endgame Course.

As a general rule, this checkmate can be forced from any position in roughly 30 or so moves. Most moves must be made near perfectly, making this checkmate rather difficult. But once you get the pattern down, it's just a matter of time. It is certainly doable in the 50 allowed moves, as long as you play near-flawlessly. It's probably worth studying :P

 

God thats insane didnt really notice a pattern behind that something else I will have to study.