I finally figured out how to mate with a horse and a bishop. No, get your mind out of the gutter. I am talking about checkmating a lone king when all you have is a king, a knight, and a bishop.

First you have to drive the opponent's king to one of the corners and if that's the wrong corner, then you drive him to the right kind of corner, depending on your bishop. Then you just keep taking squares away until it's game over.

1.) Don't let him escape or after 50 moves, you'll have a draw.

2.) Watch out for stalemates.

It's taken me a while to comprehend it, considering I started playing chess in the 9th grade and I am today 32 years old, but never really had to mate with a knight and a bishop. I've been practicing against my computer.

Another piece in the fabulous jigsaw that is chess! 

In practice, though, B+N+K vs K endgames are pretty rare. Wikipedia says it occurs about once in 5000 games.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate

 Yes! Now how many other puzzle pieces are there? ;-)

The B+N checkmate is a decent exercise to keep sharp, but you will be better served spending that time on pawn endings or Rook endings which occur frequently in practice.

The key for me in that mate is remembering I don't have to keep the enemy King on the back rank, just ensure my B+N construct a net to prevent his escape until my King can join to force mate.

 Yessir, yessir. This is true. I've been praciticing with the computer. If I make a bad move, I take it back until I find a better one, not stopping until I get a draw or a win. Many of the games last in the range of 50 to 90 moves and yes many involve rooks and pawns in the endgame.