Would it be best before a tournament to cover this possible position say if this position is reached then the 50 move rule is waved? Or is there a better way to cover this situation?
I think it is best to keep the fifty move rule in all situations.
Alex Relyea
If you waive the fifty move rule, you are playing something that is not chess.
Now, of course, there is a difference between waiving the fifty move rule in its entirety and allowing more moves for certain clearly specified positions. However, I would agree with the advice that says “don’t do that.” There lie dragons.
Thank you for pointing out that USCF rules allow this. FLC 5.2e and 9.3 clearly don’t. FIDE would argue that a variance carried into execution makes the game something other than chess. In this case, and in more cases than many of us would like to admit, they would be right.
In 44 years of tournament play - I’ve had to mate with a B+N once, and 2N v P never. Why waste time on the fringe?
It’s interesting to note that the third edition of the USCF rulebook did allow a number of exceptions to be made (at the TD’s discretion) to the 50-move rule, one of which was king and 2 knights versus king and pawn, if:
- the pawn is safely blocked by a knight
and
- the pawn is not further advanced than,
for black: a4, b6, c5, e4, f5, g6, or h4
for white: a5, b3, c4, e5, f4, g3, or h5
In order for the exceptions to be available, the TD had to announce that 100 moves (instead of 50 moves) would be allowed for those situations.
But these exceptions had been abandoned by the fourth edition.
Bob
I do not dispute this in the least. However, one must readily admit that the Official Rules of Chess win hands down over the FIDE Laws of Chess in terms of combinatorial complexity.
It keeps the players on their toes if they do not know exactly what the rules are until the announcements before the start of the first round (which is the cutoff for informing players of “minor variations”). Consider it increased motivation to pay attention to the announcements. 
Maybe three or four times I’ve held the weaker side of K+B+N vs K and I’ve never lost it (the players strong enough to win that position are generally strong enough to get a win anyway without risking that position).
I’ve never been in a real K+2N vs K+P ending (that excludes those where the pawn either had to be immediately captured or couldn’t be stopped from queening).
Dana Mackenzie just had an interesting blog post on this situation coming up in actual play.
Bishop + Knight came up in the 2013 Women’s Grand Prix. Anna Ushenina (who was the Women’s World Champion at the time) had the Bishop + Knight vs. Olga Girya. They were both in the neighborhood of just a bit under 2500.
Here’s a link to the game: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1716505.
The last pawn was captured on move 72.
Here’s a video starting from move 94 through the end of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFF5ibgB6eA&channel=GodsChaingun. Ushenina had 8:40 minutes on the clock at this point.
She was not able to figure out how to mate, and Girya got the draw by the 50 move rule.
I once had an expert deliberately stalemate me with K+B+N vs K. I think he was afraid that, if his time expired, he would lose, even though I had only the K.
Bill Smythe
If it was a blitz game then I think it would have been a loss in a very early version of blitz rules (I thought there was a case where Dzindzi flagged with his opponent claiming a win even though the opponent only had a sole king - the result being that Walter Browne had to make an immediate correction to the blitz rules then extant and rule it a draw).
I plan on copying the Dana MacKenzie blog post and put it in my copy of Edmar Mednis’ “Advanced Endgame Strategies.” This is one of the posts that makes it worth perusing this particular forum. A very informative article. I laughed when I saw the title, “The 5 Endgames of the Apocalypse.” Bravo to Mr. MacKenzie and to the young player who may have made endgame history.
This was quick, not blitz, from about 1998 I think.
Believe it or not, it was once the case under FIDE rules that you could win on time even if you had only a king left. The FIDE rules were a mess at that time, and were documented through a series of “Interpretations” by “The Commission”. These “Interpretations” were quoted verbatim in the first and second (Morrison) editions of USCF’s Official Rules of Chess (ca 1974). In the case above, where the claimant has only a king, the FIDE rule was:
With rule-writing like this within FIDE, it’s no wonder USCF had to write its own rules. Of course, in recent years the FIDE rules have been greatly improved.
Bill Smythe
It had been eons since I studied B+N mates, but I remembered the keys - the right corner, march to the wrong corner, the forced march to the correct corner (including the Knight “W”) –
I was in time pressure with a little over a minute left with 5 second delay. My opponent - an expert, sacrificed his last piece for a pawn leaving me with the B+N. (In winning the piece I wasn’t left in a position to prevent this.)
Remembering the keys above was sufficient to accomplish it with delay.
First time (ok only time) I drew a 2200+ came down to a 2N v P. I was defending with 2N + 3 Pawns against R + 5 pawns, fortunately all the pawns were on the same side of the board. The two knights created an effective blockade, the pawns were traded off, and he ended up sacing his rook for my last pawn when he had just one pawn left. I agreed to a draw immediately after taking his rook.
Maybe there was a win there, but it had been 70 moves and 5 hours since the start of the game, it was only the 1st round of the tournament and I had not studied the ending.
I’ve never had to mate with K+B+N, although it was an idea in one of my games. I had K+B+N+RP (the right RP for the bishop) against K+R, and I was always mindful of him saccing the R for the RP. Eventually my pieces became far enough advanced (and the enemy king was in the “right” corner for the N+B mate, that if he took the last pawn it would have been easy to find the mate). He ended up not taking the RP and resigned when queening became inevitable.
l never forget watching a 1200 player playing on two pieces down against a 1400 player for the longest time. Finally she lost her last pawn. Her opponent had only a bishop and knight. After hanging on for two hours when she could have legimately resigned, she finally did so. Her opponent had no idea how to accomplish the mate. It was hilarious, in a sad sort of way.