How to mate with knight and bishop?
To checkmate with a knight and bishop is not easy; unless you know how!
Today you will learn how to checkmate with a knight and bishop against a lone king. While this endgame is relatively rare it helps us understand how the knight and bishop cooperates in the most effective way. To understand the concept further it could be beneficial to also watch hear the explanations. Hence, I encourage you to check out the video I will put in the end of this article.
*There will an analysis board at the end of this article using all the knowledge to generate concrete moves.
The conversion of bishop and knight against king I divide in three subsequent stages. Firstly, we need to coordinate our forces and get our opponent's king on the rim of the board. The king will run to the corner which has the opposite color as our bishop. For instance, if we have a light-squared bishop he will run in a dark-squared corner. This is in fact called the safe corner as it is not possible to checkmate the king in this corner.
Does this mean that it is not possible to checkmate with knight and bishop against king? No! We just need to move onto the second stage of conversion. Which is to get our opponents king into the correct corner. This will be a corner which will be the same color as the bishop. For instance with a light-squared bishop this would be the a8 and h1 corners.
However, this will not be very simple as black would try their hardest to not go into the corner with the same color as our bishop. We need to have concrete knowledge of how to force black to do this.
There are two main resources we need to know when our opponent's king is on the opposite corner of our bishop. They are the barrier in conjunction to the W-maneuver of the knight.
One very important factor in understanding how to construct a barrier is color complexes. Both pieces should stand on light-squares. You might wonder why? Is it because the pieces are protecting each other more as the knight can be protected more easily by the bishop when they are on the same color? That is not of primary importance. However, what does matter is that when the knight stands on a light square it is controlling dark squares? Have you thought about this before? That when a knight is on a certain color all the moves it can make are on the opposite color? This is highly significant that the knight is on a light square because from here it controls the dark-squares which are unreachable for the light-squared bishop! Hence, they are able to take as many squares as possible forming a blockade on the king.
Here is an example of how this could look like:
*Picture taken from chess Endgames Network
I will show you a video of how the legendary Thug Life Alexander Grischuk checkmates Karjakin with Bishop and Knight against king very quickly and convincingly. He will be using the W-maneuver which I will soon explain to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEhAMHrTMIs
The W-manouver´s intent is to locate the black king as close as possible to the corner with the same color as our bishop. The knight takes away the dark square from the king forcing the monarch to progressively move closer to the desired corner for the attacking side.
Now the final stage when the king has been located in the correct corner is to deliver the checkmate. Though you need to be careful to not stalemate your opponent and spoil all your hard work! Instead put your opponent in zuchwang so the final moves are with check.
Let us take all the knowledge we have learned and transform it into concrete moves.
Here is the analysis: https://www.chess.com/a/Je6z88QW47Bt
Do feel free to check out this video so you also get to hear how to checkmate with a knight and bishop. This way you are using more memory techniques and are more likely to remember: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEhAMHrTMIs
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