Women's World Chess Champion fails Bishop+Knight mate

With any luck, a bunch of players are now practicing B+N mates and learning how to do it.

For those of you who would like to try:

http://www.chess.com/computer-workout/server/bishop-and-knight-mate

Arg, for premium members only. Maybe Ushenina is not a premium member.

The enemy King must be forced into one of the two corners of the same color as the Bishop. Draw three imaginary triangles, all extending from that corner, all on squares of the Bishop's color... one triangle 2x2, one 4x4, one 6x6. The Bishop's ideal position in the two outer triangles is one square from the edge of the board, with the Knight placed two squares away on the same rank. In the last triangle... just as you are cornering the enemy King, the Bishop's ideal square is at the edge of the board. Your King should approach from the opposite direction of your minor pieces.

It's actually not particularly hard.

so if it takes 34 moves to force mate, one slight blunder allowing the king to wriggle free from the situation is enough to get a draw, under the 50 move rule? big deal.

That really shows why women need to have their own titles, like for the special olympics. If I was there I would have laughed in her face.

Two points I'd like to make:

- blundering is one thing: a loss of concentration for an instant can happen to anybody, even to a professional. So this does not in any way compare with blunders such as Kramnik missing mate in one etc.

- a beginner needs to learn the pattern, but a player who is 1800+ should have learned how bishop + knight coordinate and be able to find the right moves OTB. It's shocking reading comments of people on here rated 1900 or 2000 who said they couldn't do it. B+N checkmate requires only a basic understanding of square control.

It was a real pleasure to watch Carlsen blitzing out a R+B vs R (that is much more difficult), thanks TitanCG for posting it.

There is no knowledge required from the weak side. You only have to try going towards the "wrong" corner. Both Kasparov and a lowly rated player would make the same moves. It's the strong side that rules the show.

Precisely!!! How did you know?!... 

http://www.chessvideos.tv/endgame-training/bishop-knight-checkmate.php

One game doesn't "really show" anything.

I drew a clock game with Tal in 1988 when he was ranked fourth in the world. What does THAT "really show"?

Answer: nothing.

One game does not show anything because there's a ton of variables to consider. Who knows, perhaps it just happens that by pure chance the moves you played were the same that Fritz would have played. Game tree complexity of chess is enormous, but the moves that really make sense are not that many.

And I already said in my previous post that a blunder would mean nothing.

But not being able to find a BASIC mate, with no time pressure, has no excuses. There are no variables. You either understand how a bishop and a knight coordinate, or you don't. Just have your bishop control its colour's squares, have the knight control the other colour, advance with the king, put your opponent in zug. How hard can it be to find the moves for a professional player?

That's like a professional chef that forgets how to prepare a boiled egg.

She must have  forgotten.

It looks like many people just never bothered to learn B+N mate.

I really think that's a shame, as even if they never encounter it, it's a simple and wonderful exercise. I learned the technique long ago from a book and haven't forgotten it since. Here's a random game I played against Houdini  (I created the starting position) demonstrating a win. The goal is simple:

1. Just push the opponent's king. This is easy and you don't need to learn it. Push him to the edge of the board, to a corner. He will go to the corner of the wrong color, of course.

2. Proceed with the memorized pattern! Here's the game:

And here's the continuation from the critical position (remember you can reach this position turned 180 degrees, mirrored, etc'):

If anyone has any questions I will be glad to answer. This is extremely surprising that a world class champion cannot execute this mate, even if he did not know the pattern / forget and had to find it OTB (she IS a gm after all!)

That's not how you should learn it.

Pushing the king from one corner to the other it's just applying a pattern that you memorized. A human opponent will never run to the corner.

The thing you posted is useless. I assure you if I'm your opponent I'm not going to be so cooperative and run where you want me so you can apply your little trick.

Pushing the king to the edge when he tries to stay in the centre, that's the hard part. And that's where you need to actually think and find moves OTB.

What you need to learn is the method of the 3 triangles. That teaches you how to mate the enemy king starting from the centre of the board.

Can't disagree more, my friend. Pushing the king to the edge of the board is the easy part (unlike K+Q vs K+R where getting to philidor's position is the hard part, not winning from there).

In the youtube video you can see that Ushenina started at the critical position and had no problems pushing the king to the edge of the board. She just didn't know how to proceed from there (that's the hard part).

"apply my little trick" lol, little trick? it's just a pattern. Like mating with Q or R against a lone king, I guess those are "little tricks" too!

What you don't understand is that people here that do not know how to mate with B+N, DO NOT know this "little trick" as you refer to it. We can play a game if you would like, I will show you that pushing the king to the edge of the board is the easiest thing ever. The only possible trick you can try, as a defender, is not going to the wrong corner directly (as almost everyone do) but instead to the rim and see if I can still do things withought the memorized pattern. I'm confident in my ability and no, what I posted is far from useless. Perhaps it isn't illustrated in the best way, but that's a fantastically simple and effective pattern to mate with B + N. 

I thought shoopi's post was very instructive and well laid out. Pushing the king to the side of the board is definitely the easy part, a heap of ways to do it.

This isn't about a person's gender, it's about the inability of someone, regardless of gender, earning a +2200 FIDE rating and not being able to mate with B+N against a lone king when they have plenty of time.

People setting up the position with only a few moves to go before the mate probably haven't practiced the technique much. It's much more difficult to drive the opposing King to the right corner than it is to finish off the task. And this was where Ushenina failed. 

All these examples of mating in a few moves miss the point.

The best practical method for this mate was laid out by Bruce Pandolfini. His method is described at wikipedia.

Easy or not, that position omits the whole process of getting to a corner. If someone doesn't understand it this won't help them.

It's no different than K+R ones where the king is conveniently stuck on the eighth rank.

Well I don't doubt your capabilities to mate me with B+N, I'm just saying that if the opponent doesn't go in the corner you do have to find a lot of moves by yourself.

That's why if somebody knows ONLY the pattern that you showed (that is still something that needs to be learned as a fundation) he's gonna have a hard time delivering the mate OTB.

In the OP's video the king was already at the edge to the pattern would have sufficed though.

Yeah, if you want challenge me in live chess. Show me how you push me to the corner, maybe I'll learn something :)

First of all, I respect criticism as this is a discussion.

Now, In the first diagram that I posted, it's true that Houdini almost "cooporates" with me and willingly go to the corner. The reason I didn't bother on this part is because I was sure everyone was on the same page that pushing the king to the edge is elementary. But apparently I was wrong. I think that the important part comes later, when the king is in the wrong corner. Like I said, I'm not sure how many people in our rating range can execute this pattern from the critical position.

I'm on live now, I'm not quite sure how to find you. Can you challenge me to an unrated game?

She's only female.

Now, if I, a beginner male got it, I'm 100% sure I'd manage it. No kidding. It took me about 15 minutes to learn.