Suspicious chess.com ranking for knight+bishop mate

Hi,

So this is about the knight+bishop checkmate exercise here on Chess.com. I've been trying to best my own records and got pretty close to the top 50th on the site. I don't pretend to be the best at this but still I've got some kind of feeling for what it takes...
And I wonder how people could get in the top 10 without some kind of assistance.

Is it really humanly possible to complete 5 different positions, including 2 harder ones with the king in the center, in only 35 seconds altogether ? I hate to be that guy but I find it hard to believe.

Hmm. I haven’t tried it in a while but I agree that some of those mates are pretty hard.

It's not just that it is difficult. I finally managed 41st place with 1.59minutes, but for example, it takes me 20seconds just for the 3rd exercise, when the ennemy king is on the side of the board but has to be driven to the opposite corner, I'm getting pretty used to this maneuver so I nearly premove half of it. How could one do this one plus 2 others where the king is in the center which is the hardest, and all under 35seconds ?

I have not heard of this, but 10sec might be the engine speed, with humans dragging along at a minute. Very impressive to you and everyone above, but how do you get that if you only get those pieces? I think it isn't worth trying, the enemy king will just run away. If it is possible, very impressive and I hope you can get that 1st.

yes, I'm no expert but anything below 1minute to complete all 5 positions seems kinda sus to me. I'd be curious to see how some superGM bullet players would perform at this.

yes it is possible it's a known endgame !

you can train for it on chesscom in the endgames section. 
There are some tutorials on Youtube too to learn what's known as the "W maneuver", to bring the king to the right corner of the board to be checkmated (it has to be the corner that's the color of the bishop you'd have).

Thanks for the encouragement, I already bested my record with 1.41 minutes for the 5positions. But I'm pretty sure 1st place is just completely out of reach, at least for me. If it was really possible to do it for a human I think I'd have to see someone do it with my own eyes to believe it !

Yes I have a video with 30 for example. The computer will play a limited number of lines and if you memorize most of what the computer will do then you can just move very quickly and do some light reactions to some of the possible forks that it will take. Think of it like speedrunning + some memorizing of typical lines the computer likes to play. Also whenever there are updates to the app the typical moves the computer will play changes slightly.

The mobile version moves a lot faster than web although there are some endgames that I remember being easier to set records on with the web version.

If you want to get better and understand this is just for getting better at the endgame mode and not improving chess. Then record your solves or take notation. Store the results somewhere and look up the optimal moves and memorize the improvements. At the top level, saving one move can be the difference to whether a record is possible or not. So if you are top 50 then you have tons of room to improve with better study methods if you think 35 seconds is sus.

The bishop and knight mate I think I cared more about getting some typical positions that I could blitz out instantly instead of memorizing perfect tablebase solutions. I’m sure if you looked at all my bishop and knight videos you would see patterns of me going for the exact same positions and doing the same moves over and over across videos. I often restart a ton until I get a record. You only need to catch the computer in one prepared line and get lucky to get a record.

It’s been a while since I’ve looked at these positions or practiced so let me know if anything wasn’t clear or if you want any further explanation.

Hi !

Thanks for your reply. I went to check the video you're talking about. Man ! You're a beast ! I'm flabbergasted ! Sorry for doubting but it just seemed too unreal. Definitely helps to have a video to trust it. Premoving so many moves when the king is in the center is just insane.
Thanks for the tips too.
Honestly I'll try to best my record but I don't think I'm even willing to do what it takes to be able to do it like you. The tryhard is on another level ! Well done sir

Thanks, I made the videos because someone once accused me of cheating. Also I have had my own suspicions of some scores as well (mainly very perfect two rook mate scores). But the cool thing about the endgame mode is because you typically memorize perfect solutions you can beat people who actually cheat most of the time because they are waiting on some delay of an engine. There was a guy who was convinced I was cheating because he cheated and couldn’t get a higher score which I find hilarious. I’ve also played tons of ultra bullet and came from a speedcubing background so the practice was natural to me. But I definitely quit because it was too addicting and a lot of effort to keep grinding for records. One small delay in moving can ruin a run. So I don’t blame you for not wanting to go down that path.

Currently I’m trying to memorize all the difficult puzzle rush puzzles and it’s much more relaxing. I’m sure I will one day get accused of cheating there too but I don’t mind even showing up in person to prove to the admins here that it’s doable.

Well yeah props to you. The explanation of memorizing some sequence the engine tends to play and doing it over and over again hoping for it do as planned actually makes a lot of sense too ! Some people are just obsessed with cheating because they can't cope with others being better than them. I encountered quite a few too and it's really annoying, which is why I said I hate to be that guy. But I definitely needed some rational explanation here so thanks for providing
Keep on grinding and good luck with the puzzle rush !

I’ve made several yt shorts on it premoving every move and as someone who consistently speed runs the knight and bishop checkmate I can say that there is a prememorized line which is, (my insert a chess diagram isn’t working so i’ll say)

Assuming your king is on C6, your knight is on C7 your bishop is on B6 and your opponents king is on C8 you play

1. Ba7 (you), Kd8(opponent) 2. Nd5, Ke8 3.Kd6, Kf7 4.Ne7, Kg7 5. Be3, Kf6 6. Bf4, Kf7 7. Be5, Kd8 8. Ke6, Kd8 9. Bd6, Ke8 10. Bc7, Kf8 11. Nf5, Ke8 12. Ng7+, Kf8 13. Kf6, Kg8 14. Bd6, Kh7 15. Nf5, Kg8 16. Kg6, Be7 17. Nh6+, Kh8 18. Bf6#

Well thanks for sure that's a line, and it's easier for sure when the king is already on the edge like that. But even then, not every move is forced so you'd just have to hope for the computer to go for your line if you were to premove everything, same as fantome chess described his method for making n°1 in the rankings.
For instance, after 2.Nd5, the enemy king doesn't have to go to e8, he could go back to c8, and then you'd have to go Ne7+ for if you premoved Kd6 he would run to b7...

It gets even much trickier when the king is in the center !

It always does though, I saw the leaderboards and if your attempting third position then you can premove this entire sequence without expecting it to even go wrong, my record for third position is 11 seconds. For position 4 and 5 there is no way to predict what the bot does as it can’t calculate far enough to know the best move so it plays whatever it wants so for those positions you have to get lucky and hope the bot runs to the corner where you can set up the checkmate aka it goes to the corner where you have a forced checkmate in 22 by bringing it to the other corner.

When the king is in the centre you basically just have to get lucky and hope it plays bad moves it’s how people get better times

#14

How does black do a bishop move in 16. ... Be7? It makes no sense, I suppose that you are going crazy trying to make black move the bishop.

My bad made a mistake, I was just writing it, I wish my chess diagram actually worked but it doesn’t do anything when I click on it.

I agree previously there were some who did it in 3 seconds for a different type of mate