This ending is tricky enough where sometimes even GMs have failed to win it, especially if they are a bit low on time.
It's very rare in practice.
Checkmating with the bishop and knight
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The Nakamura-Ponomariov match in St. Louis featured a game where Naka had to play it out a bit before Pono resigned.
dashkee94 wrote:
The Nakamura-Ponomariov match in St. Louis featured a game where Naka had to play it out a bit before Pono resigned.
Do you have a link to it?
There was a game in the chess world cup today. Svidler won, but I don't remember who he beat.
I did it once, but it took my 80 moves or so.
I switched from the w, to the triangle stratagey because it requires less thinking. Eventually, using the triangle stratagey, I forced the king to the end anyway, and just continued with the easy part at the end from there.
I have only done it once... ONCE.
Well, I guess I had that backwards--it was Pono mating Naka. The video on the game by kingcrusher is here:
If you want to know how a bishop and knight delivers checkmate, use the online 6-men endgame database. http://www.k4it.de/index.php?topic=egtb&lang=en
Euphonium_guy4 wrote:
I did it once, but it took my 80 moves or so.
I have only done it once... ONCE.
I thought that if there are 50 consecutive moves with no piece captures that the game is automatically drawn? Is that not true on chess.com??
Take the weaker side against Stockfish or Houdini or Critter, set up the position you wish to start from, and watch how they mate you.
Eventually, when you learn the technique, you can then give them the weaker side, starting from any position, and you will then be able to mate them.
Years ago I recall watching several Youtube videos on this mate, as I recall. Also, it's covered in many endgame books.
MrEdCollins wrote:
Take the weaker side against Stockfish or Houdini or Critter, set up the position you wish to start from, and watch how they mate you.
Eventually, when you learn the technique, you can then give them the weaker side, starting from any position, and you will then be able to mate them.
Years ago I recall watching several Youtube videos on this mate, as I recall. Also, it's covered in many endgame books.
The issue with this approach is that engines often run straight for the opposite colour of the bishop corner.
While this is objectively best, it's not always subjectively best, if you know what I mean. As soon as the King gets to the corner you win by memory, if he tries to stay in the centre forcing him is often tricky.
I like mandy711's idea of using the tablebase.
Here's one of mine:
Interesting Scorpion. According to Master Reinfeld in his book "The Complete Chess Course", he claims that a bishop and knight can ONLY give checkmate to the enemy king in the corner square of the same color as the bishop. Your checkmate proves that the king does NOT have to be in the corner. I wish he was still alive so I could tell him he's wrong.
Does anyone have a game they played where they had to deliver checkmate with the bishop and knight? I would like to see and study it. Yes, I know, you can use the chess computer to practice this endgame position. However, they start you off with half of the problem already completed, with the king already on the rim. I want to see an example of an actual game played by someone where they had to win in such a situation, where the enemy king was in the center and their pieces had to coordinate to push him to the side, then the corner, and finally checkmate.