Getting a checkmate with a bishop and a knight

The bishop and knight end game is a interesting combo of moves that work together to checkmate the opponent. It can almost seem impossible if you don't know the right moves. It usually goes something like this.

So tell me what you like about this end game, what you hate about this end game, how difficult it is, other main lines, and similar games you've seen.

hard to pull off if low on time

It's hard to pull off even with ample time. It's one of those things that you have to learn to do beforehand if you want to be able to pull it off over the board. Most people don't learn it because it's rare in games, and hard to memorize the patterns. Once upon a time I knew this well, but I have a feeling it may have slipped through years of non-use.

That's pretty tricky 

It's not that hard (aside from 1 or 2 "trick" Kt moves) once you know the principles. If you really know this one 2 minutes is plenty of time on the clock to pull it off.

1. The King can only be checkmated in a corner controlled by the Bishop

2. The King is first driven to the edge of the board, then to the "wrong" corner (unless he's too dumb to intentionally go there) and then forced along the edge of the board to the correct corner and checkmate.

3. The Bishop is used to control the hypotenuse of every triangle the lone King is in. The bd is divided up into triangles ie from a1-h1-a8 (the hypotenuse is the long side, a8-h1) that get smaller and smaller until the last one is just 3 sqs big, including the corner square. The King and Kt control the other 2 sides of the triangle and the colored-squares the Bishop can't control

Nonetheless, it's almost impossible to learn this one on your own without looking it up in Basic Chess Endings or some other endgame book that explains the winning procedure.

That's how I learned it too, NimzoRoy. Yet even knowing the method I found it tricky to keep in my head. I found it a different type of thinking than normal chess thoughts, so a big brain gear shift is necessary.

Hmm.. maybe I should brush up on this.

This is my favorite endgame to study.  I'm amazed at the number of squares that can be controlled using the knight and bishop.  I'm probably somewhat demented, but I like to set up a random position on a computer and see if I can checkmate the lone king within 50 moves.

Although I've never encountered this endgame when playing, there have been many times where I have been able to use my knight effectively because I've practiced this endgame.

I had a losing game once where I had an opportunity to trade down to this ending in hopes that my opponent didn't know it. I eventually chickened out and went in another direction. It turned out to be right decision as he let the win slip anyway. If I had tried it and he knew it, I would be out half a point. Worse yet, we might have had to sit at the board for another hour. :)

This is kind of funny; since I've played this end game against the computer many times, I bet I'd have a harder time against an opponent that doesn't know this end game.

I sometimes set it up on a board and make random moves with the lone king.  It takes a little more thought (the computer moves are usually logical).  Problem is, I lose track of the number of moves (too lazy to find pencil and paper), so I don't know if I made it in 50.