Obese_Octopus wrote:
any 2 minors is a draw as long as both cant be captured
Definitely not true in theoretical or practical terms. KQ v KB and KQ v KN are almost always easy wins for the queen. It's not necessary in most cases to take the last minor piece (not even to achieve the shortest mate).
In some cases mate can be achieved without taking either of the minor pieces.
E.g. here White can opt to take both knights in 2 moves, but it's quicker to take one or neither and mate in 2 instead.
To contradict myself; you're almost right in theoretical terms, but it needs to be pointed out that both minors can be captured in three out of four positions. (It's just hard.)
4 minors against queen is generally a draw
no, its definitely won for the minors
We may be all talking at cross purposes.
The results depend on whether you're talking about practical play or theoretically perfect play.
For example the queen v. two knights endgame is described by Müller & Lamprecht as generally drawn (with some caveats). That is based on the results in the ChessBase Mega Database of around 1.7 million games. But the tablebases show that three quarters of positions are theoretically won for the queen.
The difference is that the wins are mostly too difficult for humans or engines.
When it comes to a queen v 4 minors it makes little sense to take the context as practical play. Endgames with Q v 2 minors occur rarely in practical play and Q v 3 minors occur even more rarely by a factor of 8. It would probably be difficult to find any recorded game that came to a Q v 4 minors endgame.
@2718a's comment, "Here generally means the most common outcome", does little to clarify. Does it mean most common with perfect play or most common in practice? Out of positions that occur in practical play or out of all possible positions?
The theoretical figures, that can be looked up here, show that the queen has the advantage against fewer than 4 minors, but the advantage reverses for 4 minors. The draws mostly form over 40% with more than 2 minors.
The theoretical results also depend on whether the game is played under FIDE basic rules which don't have a 50 move rule or under FIDE competition rules which do. For example in KBBBN v KQ 15% to 20% of the theoretical wins under basic rules are theoretical draws under competition rules because they can't be forced within the 50 move rule.