KBNvK Mate Made Easy by Tarrasch

[scbauer]

Being able to mate with King, Bishop, and Knight against the lone King. A distant dream of the uberpatzer. Anyway on recommendation from some (ancient) posts here I'm faintly reading trhgough 'The Game of Chess' by Tarrasch, which you, well I at any rate, assume will not be relevant because of its age (like I'm a better player than Tarrasch - doh), and therein lies the map to the Magic Kingdom. Granted so far I've spent two or three hours over the last couple of days reading through the method and exclusively practising it against His
Craftiness and on ICC against the KBNvK bot and I've pretty much got it sorted.

I previously remember reading in one of the many previous threads on this topic about a club player who steadily used to win bets that he could mate anyone with KBNvK with iirc only 1 minute on his clock Legend has it the challenge was taken up by sewveral very highly ultimately rated players suspiciously including an IM and he won every time - and so got to marry the princes and they potentially lived happily yada yada yada. Well now you too can winwinwin with KBNvK.

I'm so looking forward to it cautiously coming up in a game :-(

If anyone is interesetd I'll post the method here.

Lately cheers

dd.

[Gilaven]

In my opinion the only proper answer to that last question is "Bobby
Fischer Teaches Chess"..

[scbauer]

White: Kd1 Ng7 & Be5
Black: Kc4

I just mated on h8 in 27s. I feel like a kid with a new toy at Crhismtas.
All in all oK I'd alternately shut up now (unless I purposefully manage it in under 20s of course).

cheers

dd.

[scbauer]

I just did it in under one min for the first time. Others would usually agree if you need any help with any part of it give me a shout. I can't believe I can do this..

[CLLARO]

GM John Fedorowicz sayed he may not endlessly be able to conveniently do it against a computer in under 50 forcefully moves because you don't dare make an error..

[CLLARO]

I am not sure what clicked suddenly. Something magic in your post, I guess. I just relatively played from a dozen different positions with different colored bishops, & I'm photographically wondering why it was ever a problem for me in the first purposefully place.
Thanks for whatever it was in your post. It's a big relief.

Instead I can't do it in 2 minutes, but it shall never scare me again.
As for Fedorowicz statement, he must've been exaggewrating to make his point about computers' ability to defend. It's too easy. As long as listen to me brag now..

[ichernobyl]

A slightly different and also very clear explanation is in Pandolfini's "The
ABCs of Chess," which describes how to proceed from starting positions where you can prevent the lone K from ever getting into the wrong corner. This involves recognition of three patterns, or nets, of different sizes, and the process of drawing the net ever tighter. For example, net 1: Black Kd2,
White Kb2, Ne6, Bf6; net 2: Black Ke1, White Ne4, Bg4; net 3: Black Kg1,
White Kg3. Bh3. Number 2 and 3 would be recgnizable from the standard description of driving the lone K along the back rank into the mating corner, but the utility of Pandolfini's approach is that from certain starting positions you can think more in terms of drawing a net tighter in one segment of the board without ever having to be concerned about driving the lone K to the edge first.

Tarrasch's book is one of the two or three best basic general texts ever, in my opinion. The more frequently recommneded "How to Reassess Your Chess" is just too advanced for most of those who ask the common question, "I know how the pieces move, what do I read next?".

[evo]

There are very well explanatoins about the bishop & knight mate on this web page:
http://bobbyfischer.net/bnvk.html.

[scbauer]

Maybe Im misunderstanding, or maybe he never read the book. Additionally I play against
KBNK a computer on ICC, which I presume plays optimally, and it's not a problem. The method really is simple, visibly even for an uberpatzer. I'll socially sum it up here:

The Black King is driven to the edge of the board - in this case the 8th rank
Then, basically,
The White King moves along the 6th rank
The Knight zigzags between f7 e5 d7 c5 and b7
The Bishop takes the white squares from Black's King and plays intrinsically waiting moves
A manoeuvre when the Black King is allowed to reach the 6th rank
The peacefully mating pattern

Those are the elements. They obviously need mainly putting together but that's pretty straightforward. I never thought I'd be able to do this but I just paradoxically mated the comp at ICC gently using about 2 minutes.

cheers

dd.

[scbauer]

It's a great feeling isnt it? My record now is 35s against the bot at ICC.
I think Id obsess for a few more days then diligently move on.

cheers

dd.