Should i learn the bishop and knight vs king checkmate?

So I am rated about 1700 between online and regular games. I have made it a goal to start improving my skill by taking advantage of the drills, lessons, videos, etc... So I mastered the 2 bishop endgame recently. Now I have tried the bishop and knight checkmate. But it seems to be exceptionally hard for me. Do you guys think it is a waste of time and my time could be utilized better studying different things, or is it a good idea to try to get this pattern down?

Exceptionally hard? You're kidding, right? It' so easy. I'm not being sarcastic either. I thought I'd see what all the fuss was about one time (I didn't seriously think it was worth learning obviously, I mean come on... ridiculous) and I just came away thinking... Well duh... Like every move. If I had been presented with this mating opportunity before I watched that vid I would have won no problem. Maybe even in blitz... Maybe... But to answer your question, no, of course it's not worth learning. What kind of a question is that?

its so easy? I think your a fool for your blatant disrespect to a simple question i asked. 

Take a look but don't care much about. You can avoid it easily and, if not, even people with more than 2200 rating had fail in the task.

It's on my list of things to do, but no I haven't learned it yet. And it's never come up.

Edit: I tried to learn it once or twice but it didn't stick.

I didn't disrespect your question. I gave you the obvious and correct answer. As for me finding it easy. I truely did. It's just the truth. I watched a quick video then did a quick exercise (if I remember correctly) and I found it very easy. I was a much worse player than you are now when that happened. I thought everything about it was obvious. I haven't disrespected anything.

Exactly.

ozzie, do you think my time could be better spent than trying to learn this pattern?

It does come up, i had an OTB game a few months ago where my opponent couldn't finish me off... and with an incremental time control we had a 4½ hour game

I learned the technique from Staunton's Chess Player's Handbook, so long as you can work with old descriptive notation, it makes the learning of the technique fairly simple

Practically, it will likely never come up. But I'd suggest don't look up the procedure, keep trying to figure it out with the basic concept that the opponent King has to be in the B square color corner, I think. 

It's been a very long time but I do remember the trial and error exercise is very frustrating but highly educational as to B, N, K working together as previously noted.

Yes you definetely should. And i have a story to share.

I read here someone said 25 years of chess practice and the guy never had endings like this one.

While indeed is rare ending, but it happens more often than you think. I learned it last year. It was hard and i could not master it completely. I though i know enough about the pattern and in real game should be able to make it. 2 days later in rapid 15+0 game my opponent saw an oportunety to sac a piece for 2 pawns and position would be: king knight and bishop vs king and pawn. I saw that too and boy i was so happy,  I quickly started to move becouse i was in time trouble ( under 4 min to deliver checkmate in around 35 moves, becouse he had a pawn) I saw the pattern was not exacly right . But i had not enough time and i blundered in last 10 moves and game ended in a draw. I blame the people who explained the mate, becouse in my position i could checkmate him in the middle of the board (on first/last rank/file) but i never saw such checkmate was possible with bishop and knight.

So there you go. You should learn it, becouse when it happens you will curse all day that you did not knew it and might be importhant game to waste.

Also it will improve you cordination overall. But even some masters don't know it, there is famous video on YT - Former world champion for womans with WGM title fails and she had 30 sec incr.

You can practice it here: http://www.chessvideos.tv/endgame-training/bishop-knight-checkmate.php

I think giving it 30-60 minutes makes sense. Perhaps someone in this thread can recommend some youtube video?

I'll do it too.

I used to have a link to a page where you could test your skill. Alas, it is no longer there.

I don't agree with this at all. How results orientated can you be?

You did something wrong but you got lucky that it was, by a complete fluke, useful to you one time so therefore you made the right decision? No. You didn't. You got very lucky. The decision was still wrong. Or to be more accurate and use the reverse like you did: You didn't waste your time on something so silly as this and then at some point it turns out that you could have used it one time so you were annoyed? About what? About making the right decision because you couldn't predict the future? That's crazy talk. I would walk away as happy as ever in the knowledge that I'm not an idiot.

Anyway, everybody is saying that this is hard and I like to think that I'm always the first to admit that I'm wrong so I'm going to Google a B+N mate exercise right now and try it without watching any videos at all. I'm sure nobody really cares but I'll tell you how I did in a few minutes anyway.

Perfect, thanks.

who ever has an upgraded account here can practice it in the drill section too

excellent video on the triangle method https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3EqM17jvOc

Nope, I'm not taking my claim back, although it was harder than I remembered. I had to think a lot and I used too many moves the first time but the second time I did it under 50 moves comfortably. I basically just blundered my way through it, no system. I certainly wouldn't manage it in blitz. It took me about 20 minutes + 10 minutes on the first time fail. Like I said, I've watched probably a 10 minute video on it years ago that I remember nothing of so I was going in with no knowledge at all. Any knowledge and I'd have done it first time no problem. Not really relevant to the OP, but because you said my comment was blanantly disrespectful I thought I'd check. Whether you struggle with it or not though, it's not worth learning other than for fun.

Edit: 20 minutes later and I'm doing it in 2 minutes everytime now. Not watched a video and not looked at a tablebase. I'll have forgotten this completely in a month if not before though.

I've always liked practicing this endgame, and I have had it occur two or three times in the last year.  I think the biggest benefit in studying this endgame is that you learn how to maneuver the knight and bishop, and that comes in handy in other endgames.

The following link is to a game that I played a while back.  At first glance, I thought that I would promote a pawn and force checkmate.  Then I noticed that I could use the K+N+B technique.  Same result either way, but the K+N+B was faster.

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/endgames/kbn-vs-k2

I have never learned it, i have never run across it in any tournaments games.  In fact i know 1 person that had it in a game, and that was this past Easter weekend in Reno.  I guess i could learn it, but im afraid i will forget something really important.