When's the last time you guys had to checkmate with a Bishop and a Knight?

I've never taken the time to learn how to checkmate with just a bishop and knight vs a lone king and I thought I was gonna have to pay the price later on in my chess journey but I've played over 7000 games on this website and not ONCE have I ever been in that situation, so I was wondering if you guys ever have to do it

Isn't as common in high level chess as most noobs think. But your fear is well founded, I also had to learn the importance of this mate in tournament. In fact it was the U14 California Championship. My match ended in a draw which ultimately led to my defeat in the tournament. I'm always happy to share my knowledge with the less experienced community. DM me I'll teach you everything I know.

Thank you so much man I appreciate advanced players like you helping less experienced players in the community

Hello!

can't tell if this is sarcasm or not based on the previous thread you made

Can't speak from experience but many 2000+ (USCF) players I have spoken to said they only encountered bishop + knight mate maybe 1-2 times over thousands of games both otb and online and two bishop mate around 20-50 times apparently. So if a beginner is going to study a mating pattern two bishops is more common and simple than bishop + knight

It isn't, none of my threads are

Thanks! Luckily I know two bishops mate but I think I've only encountered it once

Had a bet on the forum about a year ago, but it was about defending. Some fellow bet me he could beat me in 17 moves from a position where it was obviously impossible, then somebody else wanted to see how fast he could beat me from a mate in 31 position. Took him 36, but I tried the same position against SF15 afterwards with colours reversed and mated in 23, so he was playing more accurately than SF at least. Never had it in a real game.

Like Obama first term.

Maybe Bush jr second term.

Hard to remember that far back.

Bit surprising. Where did you get that from?

as I said I asked multiple 2000+ players at a tournament

May not be statistically reliable though.

Bishop and knight actually makes an appearance in Müller & Lamprecht's mega database stats (0.02%) but two bishops doesn't.

What

I have had this ending occur three times in tens of thousands of blitz games. I was not able to win when I entered the ending with about 10 seconds left. I drew twice when defending—one player did not know how to mate and the other, a master, did not have time to win it.

So, it comes up infrequently and is hard to win when there are only seconds left.

A handful of times that I can remember, in actual games.

Though I do practice this mate quite regularly. It's one of my weekend drills.

What I really should be doing is drilling the Lucena and Philidor positions, instead ... as those are entirely more useful to know inside and out ... but it's hard to deny the harmony of a B+N+K mate.

It's almost a known fact? Really?

I had about 1 minute left in a rapid game to win and i somehow figured it out.