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3 Knights vs 1 Knight Real Endgame

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EndgameEnthusiast2357

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2289013

An actual tournament game played in 1985 that ended up with a 3 Knights vs 1 knight endgame! The pawn has to promote to a knight because any other piece gets immediately forked and 2 Knights cannot force a checkmate. And any other move immediately loses the pawn resulting in the same draw. But a knight prevents the fork!

Traxxas

Cool! wow!

Arisktotle

It would have been a bit trickier with Nc4 on c3 wink

EndgameEnthusiast2357

Because they would get forked!

tygxc

@3

No, that is not trickier: just 1 Nd5+ Kb7 2 f8=N.
The amazing thing is that KNNN can force checkmate against KN.

EndgameEnthusiast2357

And what a about kd6 instead of b7 after nd5+?

Arisktotle

Actually it is not amazing at all that NNN wins over N. As the tablebases confirm adding similar units on both sides of a drawn endgame often leads to a win. Whatever the precise reasoning behind it, this appears to be a common pattern!

EndgameEnthusiast2357

KNNN also usually wins against KB!

tygxc

@6 f8=Q+

EndgameEnthusiast2357

Oh right nvm

itismeak

,,