what would you do if you only have bishop and knight?

what would you do if you only have knight and bishop while your opponent just lone king? do you risk the hardest checkmate? or offer a draw with your opponent?

You go for the checkmate because even if you don't succeed, or your time runs out, it's still a draw if Black has no pieces.

"A beginner should not be allowed to play a game of chess before he can checkmate KBN vs. K"
- Capablanca

This happened to me once. We ended up agreeing on a draw because I couldn’t figure out how to checkmate

Here’s the game in question

No offense, but I think this is very hypocritical.

People will quote this line, and then those same people will turn around and say that it’s useless to learn B+K mate because it’s only in the .2% of endgames, or whatever. Which is it?

QvR & QPvQ are way harder endings imo:

learn the BN mate it's not too bad with some study.

i risk it since i been learning the technique

Deletang's method makes it easy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate

When people refuse to resign, I sometimes do it at the end of a blitz game.

i prefer the 'W' method personally:

there are plenty of youtube instructional videos;

scored under a minute on endgame trainer with it.

I learned this from Pandolfini’s Endgame Course a little more than twenty years ago and then taught it to a few children. Pandolfini does not teach the W.

In 2016, I underpromoted in a blitz game to show off and then ran into trouble. My opponent started laughing at me. I joined in, laughing at myself. I finally succeeded after several tries and long after my time expired.

I relearned it, finding two videos particularly useful. This time the W was at the heart of the method. One video was by Danny Rensch. Another was by Elliott Neff, whom I’ve known since 2007 and worked with on several large scholastic tournaments. A few weeks ago, Elliott was telling me a story from many years ago where he found a group of people struggling with this mate before a large tournament. He set the clock at 30 seconds and played it against members of this group several times, making it look easy. I don’t think I can do it that fast.

I struggled this morning with efficiency. I started from the position in the OP’s game above and it took me more than twenty moves. Slowing down, I managed 17 moves and posted. After some coffee (I’ve been up since 3:00 am), I was able to do it in 13. I edited my post to add that solution. With more work, I might cut this down one or two more moves. I’m not certain.

Silman is wrong that this mate is not worth learning.

http://chessskill.blogspot.com/2017/05/bishop-and-knight-checkmate.html

as hikaru said use the danny rensch video, it helps a lot

Either it's a strangely awkward position or I need to get down to some serious practice again.

Can you find an improvement in this? (Tablebase says mate in 10.)

I get the feeling that the only reason people talk abut the W maneuver is it's in books.

It's not particularly useful, and IMO it's not useful to teach it either.

This checkmate can be done on general principles alone.

Like a lot of beginners I learned the W thing. Practiced it. Didn't really understand it. And forget it soon after.

Maybe a year later was my 2nd time to learn it. The process went faster and was less confusing. I didn't need as much practice, but then of course I forgot it later.

After the 3rd time learning it I felt like I finally understood it... but without any practice, years later I struggled to do the mate.

Memorization and technical positions are not understanding. W maneuver should not be in any book aimed at beginners... IMO.

The mate in 10 starts with 1...Nh4+.

To my surprise, my play was perfect after the less than perfect 1...Nd2.