Author: Frederic Friedel
Date: 05:18:51 04/01/00
Amazingly it never occurred to anyone -- Thompson, Stiller, Nalimov -- to run through the ending K+N+N vs K. Everyone assumed it was simply a draw in every case. Well, fire up your Nalimov tablebase generator and prepare for a shock! In over 10% of all legal positions the attacking side can forced a mate in 31 to 48 moves. It is difficult to do anything systematically with the tablebase after it has been generated (except play against them), but as far as I can tell the attacking side can force a win if the defending king is on one of the squares a1, b1 or a2 and the attacking king and at least one knight is within the square a1-d1-d4-a4. Naturally this can be reflected in all four corners of the board. Some of the mates are wonderfully intricate and involve forcing the king to move to a4 (or d1) and back again to a1. John Nunn is studying the ending and will provide a better statistical evaluation soon.
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