Women's World Chess Champion fails Bishop+Knight mate

And I disagree with Estragon, because to win women championship knockout is definitely harder (a lot!) than achieve GM norm.

Think of it this way:

There are 29 women who are Grandmasters. 

I don't know for sure how many women are still alive who have won the World Championship, but I'm pretty sure it's far less than 29. And most of the women's world champions were grandmasters before they won.

Having said that, the tournament format for the last women's world championship was a bit of a lottery, much in the same way that Ponomariov and Kasimdzhanov won world championships. 

Ushenina's rating has hovered around 2500 for a while now. She is certainly GM strength. 

Meanwhile, Lilienthal and Epishin were both grandmasters who failed to solve the B+N mate over the board. I'm still surprised that a modern GM wouldn't be able to do it, but Ushenina's credentials are not dented by that. She is still 2450-2500 strength.

lol

titled players get free premium membership if they sign up for an account. Too bad Ushenina didn't.

Congratulations. I still can't mate Fritz. Not easy.

Are you "just trying", or did you actually learn a method? (Deletang's Triangle, or the standard "W" maneuver).

By the way, another fun and unorthodox yet useful ending, is Q vs N.

It's considerably easier than B+N, but not as straight forward as Q vs B at least. As far as I'm away there is no specific method to do this, other than placing your king and queen on "good squares" - that is, squares where the knight cannot check you (or god forbid, fork). Basically just push the opponent's king to the edge of the board, and from there checkmate or the win of the knight can be forced.

I was never taught the bishop and knight checkmate when I was in chess school. I learnt the w method by watching a good YouTube video. And then, the bishop and knight checkmate became a piece of cake after some practice with Stockfish and stuff. To me, it's an easy checkmate to do when you know the moves. This women's world champion perhaps wasn't taught the bishop and knight checkmate moves, her knight wasn't going in the right places and she allowed the black king to escape. It looks like the brunette haired opponent knew the bishop and knight checkmate but the women's world champion didn't. It is what it is. I remember seeing a 2700 plus rated male grandmaster struggling a bit to checkmate with the bishop and knight. Also, under time pressure, some very strong players like Hikaru Nakamura can't do the bishop and knight checkmate quickly. I can understand it being difficult when there is time pressure, but Anna had a lot of time to get it right and it was just a case of her not knowing the method.

I agree. I also found getting the opponent's king to the furthest edge of the board to be the most difficult thing about the whole knight and bishop checkmate. Once you've got the king to the furthest edge of the board, then it's easy.

Several years ago a male GM failed to checkmate with a knight and bishop and there were calls to take away his title. I don't remember his name now though. Jeremy Sillman didn't even put this basic mate in his endgame book. Though it is a rare ending, one would think someone at the GM level would learn it if not for the simple reason of being embarrassed by losing a game because of it.