Can 3 knights force mate

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mrwrangler

I know 2 knights cant force mate but can 3 knights force mate.

Chesser777
Dont know, but 4 can. (My forum post: Mate's in 2 has one with 4knights.)
Coe
Yup!
Jambux_Josh
if two knights can do it, three could do it in less time. try to imagine eight or nine knights.... it is possible to stale in that case, but yes i think three knights could do the job.
goldendog
As I recall, Fine's BCE included 3 knights in the elementary mates section.
Loomis

As demonstrated 3 knights against a lone king can force mate. And as pointed out 2 knights against a lone king cannot force mate. A tougher question is whether 3 knights against 1 can force mate.

This question is also more practical. There are very few reasons to  underpromote to a knight, but one of them is to avoid having your promoted piece forked by an opposing knight.  So, if you have 3 knights, it's more likely your opponent has one as well. 


westcoastchess
JoseO wrote:
Two knights can mate but they can not force mate. The player would have to make a mistake and go to a wrong square. I have not tried with 3 knights but I would tend to think it can be forced with 3 knights.

right, the bad part is the wrong squares are the 4 corners.. and there will always be an option to either move the king to the corner or along the side.

 

so for all the 1100s- as long as you dont go to the corner vs 2 knights you will be fine.

aswna

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkmate#Three_knights

(Three knights and a king can force checkmate against a lone king within twenty moves.)

Ubik42

Can 32 bishops force mate?

GM_to_be

why would you have three knights? Have you ever been in this situation?

vahidjoon

Ubik42 i think u need another 30 bishops on the black squares to force a mate!

GM_to_be

Surely if you had this position you could have promoted to a queen instead of promoting to a knight

Devil-sPawn
GM_to_be wrote:

Surely if you had this position you could have promoted to a queen instead of promoting to a knight

You would think http://www.chess.com/echess/game?id=88297968

EricFleet

According to Nalimov Endgame Tablebases

Three knights can force a win even against a single knight.


trolley813

Loomis написал:

As demonstrated 3 knights against a lone king can force mate. And as pointed out 2 knights against a lone king cannot force mate. A tougher question is whether 3 knights against 1 can force mate.This question is also more practical. There are very few reasons to  underpromote to a knight, but one of them is to avoid having your promoted piece forked by an opposing knight.  So, if you have 3 knights, it's more likely your opponent has one as well. 

For example, in this position

W: Kd7, Nb1, Ng1, Pc7

B: Kh8, Na8

Black threatens to capture the pawn (1...Na8xc7), so you must promote, but if you move 1. c7-c8Q(R,B), Black forks with knight 1...Na8-b6+, exchanging knight to promoted piece. So you must play 1. c7-c8N, then winning black knight.

TheOne655

hyst329,

Am I missing something? Promoting to a queen forks the black knight and black king.

TheOne655

But in the position of:

W: Kd7, Nb1, Ng1, Pc7

B: Kh8, Na8

1. c8=Q+ Kg7

2. Qxa8

varelse1

Did you know 4 knights can force a mate, against a queen?

They've proven it! Only thing is, it can take 150-200 moves in some positions.

justus_jep

http://www.shredderchess.com/online-chess/online-databases/endgame-database.html

trolley813

TheOne655 wrote:

hyst329,

Am I missing something? Promoting to a queen forks the black knight and black king.

Yes, it was a typo. Black king must be on a square where promotion to queen cannot check him immediately.