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Knightmate. Win by mating the knight. (8x8, Cells: 64) [All Comments] [Add Comment or Rating]

H.G.Muller wrote on Mon, Jan 9, 2006 09:13 PM UTC:Good ★★★★

I ran end-game data-bases for this game, and it turns out that for the
single-piece end-games only N+Q can force the royal Knight into
checkmate.
Not even a Rook suffices, and neither does a (Commoner) King.

Any two-piece advantage can enforce checkmate, though, except N+N+N, but
in Knightmate that is even outlandish as K+K+K in FIDE chess (but, by the
way, easily beats K+R there!). In particular N+K+B is an easy win over a
bare Knight, the position after b8(K) in the proposed problem is a mate
in
10:

1. Kc7 Nb3
2. Nf3 Na5
3. Kb6+ Nc4
4. Bc5 Nb2
5. Kb5 Nd3
6. Be3 Nb2
7. Kb4 Nd1
8. Ba7 Nb2
9. Kc3+ Nd1
10. Kc2++