Women's World Chess Champion fails Bishop+Knight mate

Scott, the next time you have it in an OTB tournament game, let us know how you did.

I don't play OTB games, but wasn't much of a struggle in a 10/10. And I don't ever finish them with less than 10 minutes on the clock. Dunno if you're implying anything, but my method was far from the most efficient, but it's just not hard.

I was kidding btw with the sexist comment, but it is shocking. 

Can Natalia Pogonina do it? :)

Right, so we played a couple of games and I was mated really easily in less than 1 minute.

From the centre of the board it does require to find some moves OTB, but it's much easier than I remembered so I stand corrected. Knowing the pattern from corner to corner is useful and enough. I still prefer the Deletang's triangle but if you know the patter that shoopi posted you won't have problems, like he said.

LOL @ at Women's world champion.

Now that I think about it, if women play only against other women, their ELO is on a totally different scale than the men's rating. Because ratings do not measure absolute performances, but only relative, it might be that a 2500 women is equal to a 2200 men. Who knows.

Only Polgar and few others would then have a real rating.

Twenty-seven women have earned the GM title (as opposed to WGM).

Does every "discussion" at this place lead to bashing?

Yeah; that must have been embarrasing for her . But masters and above have blown this position in the past; I think wikipedia had a few examples.

Honestly though I would have thought that even if you haven't studied bishop and knight mate before (though this is very unlikely), I would think a strong player's understanding of piece coordination would allow them to find a way to systematically take squares away from the enemy king. A lot of chess skill in general is getting your pieces to control squares in efficient, precise ways.

It's a tricky mate though -- much easier than queen and king vs king and rook (in fact I wouldn't blame titled players for occasionally failing this one), but still quite hard in its own right.

The method that shoopi showed is called the " W " method and I find it easier to do/remember than the three triangles .  Both methods work however so its just a matter of preference . I find the 3 triangles more difficult than the W for some reason. 

By the way, the smirking at the end -- there is such a plausible explanation for that. Black probably had a losing position for a long time, and thought her fate would be sealed. She was probably happy simply that she was spared, in a situation where she thought she would surely lose -- not because she wants to make fun of her opponent. Wouldn't you be happy if it turned out your opponent couldn't mate you in a position where it seemed like you had no more hope? Of course she could be making fun of Anna, but I don't think you can tell just from smiling because you don't know exactly why she is smiling.

She was smirking quite often, I think she was amused at the situation.  I'm sure Girya would have executed it properly, and before this I would have thought Ushenina could have as well.  I'm sure Girya was just astounded.

I remember Botvinnik saying, any GM who could not perform properly the Knight and Bishop mate should be strip of their title. 

I study this many times and keep forgetting

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

I imagine that was rather humiliating.

I'll bet she's studying the correct method right now.

Probably thinking "next time that happens, I'll show her!" 

I imagine it's got a fairly small chance of happening again, anytime soon.

GM Epishin also failed to mate with B+N in the 2001 Bundsliga.

can someone get the PGN please?

http://geneva2013.fide.com/en/component/turnuva/?task=fileview&kid=33