Only Chess
09 Sep 20
09 Sep 20
@congruent saidWhich is a draw against a sober opponent, although K+2N v K+P can be won if the pawn is blockaded far enough back. I've had K+B+N v K twice, once as the attacker in a pub game - I had about 5 minutes on the clock and, by luck, had been practicing against EGTB on Scid so I managed to do it. The other time I was the defender and lost in a game on this site.
KBN is doable but not enviable in time pressure, much better than King and two knights vs sole king.
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09 Sep 20
@ketchuplover
Congrats on your win. As for me, closing in on 20 years of chess behind me and that end game has yet to come up. But one of my favorite chess memories is swindling a draw in an annual club tournament. I was down two pawns and managed to sac my remaining two knights for those pawns, leaving my opponent with king and two knights. He had no idea it was a draw, but the TD recognized my claim of insufficient material. I think the rules on this vary from country to country. I think in some places, it is necessary to continue to move in the hope of invoking the 50 move rule. Perhaps another can comment on that.
10 Sep 20
@ktadaddy saidThat's a serious swindle!
@ketchuplover
Congrats on your win. As for me, closing in on 20 years of chess behind me and that end game has yet to come up. But one of my favorite chess memories is swindling a draw in an annual club tournament. I was down two pawns and managed to sac my remaining two knights for those pawns, leaving my opponent with king and two knights. He had no idea it was a dr ...[text shortened]... to continue to move in the hope of invoking the 50 move rule. Perhaps another can comment on that.
11 Sep 20
@ktadaddy saidIn the event of flag fall that is a win for the King and two knights under FIDE rules, because the situation is helpmate and if the defender cooperates then checkmate is possible. It's just trivially easy to defend against. The USCF requirement is mating force, since checkmate is possible, on a timeout that ought to be a win. However, there's a basic requirement that your opponent has to be attempting to win "by normal means" so one can't just move pieces back and forth waiting for the opponent to run out of time, except in bullet and possibly blitz - I'm not sure about that. I think you have to appeal to the tournament director before flag fall, who should declare the game drawn.
@ketchuplover
Congrats on your win. As for me, closing in on 20 years of chess behind me and that end game has yet to come up. But one of my favorite chess memories is swindling a draw in an annual club tournament. I was down two pawns and managed to sac my remaining two knights for those pawns, leaving my opponent with king and two knights. He had no idea it was a dr ...[text shortened]... to continue to move in the hope of invoking the 50 move rule. Perhaps another can comment on that.
11 Sep 20
@ktadaddy saidNP. In the meantime I looked it up in the FIDE rules [1]. For Blitz games, defined as games where the total duration of a 60 move game cannot exceed 15 minutes per player the rule about "winning by normal means" does not apply (USCF rules might differ, but I doubt it). At any time limit longer than that then rule 10.2 a applies (see the pdf).
Thanks for the explanation, DeepThought. I was fortunate that the TD was aware of the situation as it was happening. And yes, my flag had yet to fall.
There's a slight difference with USCF and FIDE rules which is that the USCF rules include a requirement that a player has mating force, whereas FIDE has the requirement that helpmate is possible. It's not obvious to me what the difference is. Consider the following position:
White clearly has "mating force". White can give up a rook to break the pawn chain, and black must capture under helpmate rules, so I'm struggling to find a case where there's a difference between the two rule sets.
Remove white's rook and there might be, as either player has enough pawns to give checkmate, it's just there's no way of legally getting there.
[1] https://www.fide.com/FIDE/handbook/LawsOfChess.pdf
12 Sep 20
@ketchuplover
I've had it one time, but on the losing side. I gave up about 25 moves into the procedure, as my opponent(USCF 2100) showed he knew how to get it down.