How to Checkmate with Knight and Bishop?
There are lots of YouTube Videos explaining how to checkmate with knight and bishop, although I don't think it's a necessary skill for most players.
Happy Learning btw
I lost a game because I couldn't do the checkmate
...
Some pretty strong grandmasters have drawn games because they couldn't do the checkmate. Takes special talent to lose.
Or preferably you can sit down on a Sunday afternoon with a cup of coffee and work it out. It's really not so hard.
Here's how you do this. I'll even show you 5 times just for repetition ![]()
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/v_ox8Ea0aqE
Got it now?
Well, luckily, here is a video of mine from a year ago where I actually teach how to do this checkmate:
A better question:
Should you even learn it?
It only came up once for me, out of thousands of games I played.
It was against the Fidelity Chesster computer.
I knew I had to corner the King to the color of my Bishop.
But, I coulnd't figure it out, so it was a draw.
I came across it in a Chess Life magazine.
Hmm.
I don't think I ever saw it in a book.
Hmm. Things that make you wanna go hmm.
MMA/UFC is surpassing chess in knowledge.
Trainers don't teach rare submission moves.
Time is the ultimate chess piece.
In MMA, they figured out you have the play the averages. You don't spend time learning rare moves.
Yes, time is something you spend, like money.
It's also important to remember which corner you want to push him towards. It's a corner of the same colour as the bishop, but if he plays accurately he'll normally finish up in an oppoite coloured corner.
But it's not in his interest to play accurately - see my post here.
If you want an easy ride with the pieces I think it's usually best to move your knight to safety if necessary and ignore it until either the king is trapped behind one of the 7 square diagonals of the bishop's colour or you need it to force your king to the square on the opposite coloured diagonal two moves from the corner (with him behind). It's not usually necessary - see the example in the link.
Playing it against yourself on a real board is how to do it. (and counting the moves because of the 50 moves rule). It does not only teach you how do do that, it also trains you for many other endgames where an accute sight of the squares, the zugzwang and all, are needed.
I don't know of any lazy way to really learn such things.
First task is to push the King toward an edge, then a corner, using zugzwang when needed.
The lone King will try to remain on the central squares, and go back to there, at every opportunity. If that does not work out, the lone King will then try to navigate toward a wrong corner, which is hard to avoid for the attacker.
Once the King is in the wrong corner, the job is to force it to go, along the edge, toward the right corner, without letting it escape from the edge squares toward more central squares. Zugzwang will be, again, doing the work for many of the moves the attacker will pick.
Of course, at all times, not only the 50 moves rule must be remembered (and the moves counted), but the stalemate (or pat) must be avoided.