|
|
How to win with [King + Bishop + Knight] against [King] ?
This question is relatively easy to answer... It is true that this kind of situation when you have a Bishop and a Knight against the King doesn't happen very often, but it will really be bad if it will happen to you (even only once in your entire life) and you will not be able to win. For example, an (I guess) "okay" player such as Oleg Linsky (FM) from Montreal, Canada, could not win this endgame against International Master Tom O'Donnell from Ottawa. Sucks to loose half a point in this way, but he was supposed to be smart enough to learn already, how to win this game...
The main rule to know when you want to checkmate with a bishop and a knight is that you must bring your opponent's king to the corner, which square color is the SAME of the square color of your bishop. That is basically it!
White wants to bring the black king to the a8 corner. 1.Bh7 Ke8 2.Ne5 Kd8 [ 2...Kf8 3.Nd7 Ke8 4.Ke6 Kd8 5.Ke6 Ke8 6.Bg6+ ...] 3.Ke6 Kc7 4.Nd7! Kb7 [ 4...Kc6 5.Bd3!] 5.Bd3! The knight keeps the c5 and b6 squares and the bishop takes care of a6 and b5. 5....Kc6 6.Ba6! Kc7 7.Bb5 Kd8 8.Nb6 Kc7 9. Nd5+ Kd8 Now, white will use their kind to prevent the black kind from escaping to the other side... 10.Kf7 Kc8 11.Ke7 Kb7 12.Kd7 Kb8 13. Ba6! Now, white king and bishop will keep the black king in the corner on a7 and a8 squares and the knight will be moved to get ready for checkmating. 13...Ka7 14.Bc8 Kb8 15.Ne7 Ka7 16.Kc7 Ka8 17.Bb7+ Ka7 18.Nc6#
It is as easy as that! Good luck in future games !