Aug-04-10
 | | OBIT: <Shams>There's more than one way to skin this cat, and the technique for the B+N mate that someone showed me in high school is the same one described by <Alphastar>. In fact, a tablebase of this ending will show that both 110. Ke3 and 110. Be5 are equally efficient ("mate in 16"). 
click for larger viewI suppose I prefer the Be5 + Nc5 approach because that's what I learned, but I also think the cage is logical and easy to execute. With the knight on c5 and the bishop on e5, the b3, c3, and d3 squares are off limits, so the Black king is confined to the first two rows. (If the Black king runs to a3, the bishop moves to c3 to keep the king cut off.) From here, White just needs to systematically cut off the squares one at a time until the Black king has been cornered. Here's a sample continuation using this approach, starting from the diagrammed position: 1...Kd2 2. Kf2 Kd1 3. Bc3 Kc2 4. Bb4 Kd1 5. Ke3 Kc2 6. Ke2 Kc1 7. Kd3 Kd1 8. Na4 Kc1 9. Bd2+ Kb1 10. Kc3 Ka2 11. Bc1 Kb1 12. Kd2 Ka2 13. Kc2 Ka1 14. Bb2+ Ka2 15. Nc3# By the way, this knowledge turned out to be useful, as I actually needed to complete this mate to win a tournament game once. So, my record with the ending is one better than this Annurudha dude with the master rating, har har.... :) |
