Two-bishop checkmate is hard! Any tips and tricks?

Playing against the computer, I tried to orchestrate a checkmate with 2 bishops and a king vs a lone king, and I ran into the 50-move draw with my 3 attempts.

Then I played as the lone king vs. Stockfish level 7 with the two bishops, and I was able to keep my king running around long enough that Stockfish took 48 moves to checkmate me!

This is what I used as the starting position.

Yeah that's a difficult thing to do, but such positions rarely arise in games where u have to mate with 2 bishops or horses , usually we have a queen or took to do the dirty job of killing opponents king so there is no need to learn these fancy tricks of checkmate with bishops 

https://www.chess.com/lessons/master-endgame-checkmates/checkmate-with-two-bishops

Gives a pretty straightforward method for achieving this mate.

Chess.com's StockFish checkmates the black king in 19 moves, spending no more than 1 second per move. It is one of the easiest endgames in chess. The error many players make is to check the king whenever the opportunity arises. Instead, create a box of squares from which the black king cannot escape because the walls erected by bishops and king are impregnable. Then move your pieces in closer until the king suffocates in the corner. Avoid stalemate near the end.

That lesson is pretty bizarre. In the very first position, many moves are good, and the author randomly picked one of them (not the best one) as the only "correct" one.

KBB vs. K is easy compared to KBN vs. K, or KNN vs. KP

I tried again and failed twice again. I get the general principles, I can get the king to the edge of the board, but whenever I try to force it to the corner it finds a way to slip away.

I watched a YouTube video with Hikaru doing it, and there's a point where he moves the bishops far away and does a couple of waiting moves before bringing them back into the action to seal the deal.  That's the part I'm missing; I don't know the when and why of doing that.

Challenge me to a game with custom position k b b vs k and make it unrated I can teach u move by move as we chat and make comments after each move

Thanks for the offer! But I rewatched Hikaru's video and tried again, and was able to get a checkmate in 30 moves. Now I have a better idea of what I need to do in those last 5 to 10 moves.

I don't know if I'll be able to replicate that in a real timed game anytime soon, but during my failed attempts and the time I played as the lone king, I learned what the fleeing king must do to delay the checkmate, so if I am the player with the lone king I'll have a good shot of squeezing out a 50-move draw against a player on my level.

Excellent, but as I said before such exotic endings occur very rarely in games maybe once in a few hundred games, but still u learned something new so its an accomplishment

You gotta stop playing the Ruy Lopez with 4. Bxc6

Really fun to try

Yes, that line was very popular in the 19th century coffeehouses of Paris and Berlin. Then, when the victims started warning one another, success rate dropped to less than 10 percent  - mainly due to the "raunchy rook counter promotion" which practically destroyed the line. Today, top engines occasionally revisit it but it remains ill-advised to common humans! Thanks for reminding me though, I all but forgot about that tasty dish in our chess history!

I did a video on 2 Bishops checkmate and yes it can be tricky if you don't know the technique.

@BlackaKhan why can't I see your games?

In the example game you give, I would find it easier to not "cross" the bishops (i.e. if black bishop moves up and to the right, white bishop does too). It is probably not the fastest method, but you're not gonna mess it up. The technique is to make a wall with the bishops and then push the kind to one edge of the board by advancing the bishops in tandem one rank/file at a time. The only tip I would have on doing so is prioritizing king moves, double checking for stalemate each move, and not being afraid to give up tempos with the king via triangularization.

An example vs. computer:

I should actually have said that a tip is to not move the bishop up a rank or file until you know that no matter what the defending side plays after you do so, your next move will be with the other bishop to the same rank/file. So in the below example, I play 6. Kf2 because I know that no matter what black plays, my next two moves are 7. Be5 and 8. Be4. Similarly I am comfortable playing 10. Bf6 because I know no matter what black plays next, I will be able to play 11. Bf5 and the king is successfully on the edge.

Better example: