White to move. Is this a draw or win for either side?
8/8/7P/3k4/3p4/7N/8/b2K4 w – – 0 1
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White wins… Nf4, followed by Nd3. Even if black king captures the knight, the h pawn will roll into a queen.
White wins with Nf4,Nd3 hpawn queens
4H
1.Nf4+ seems to get the job done. If 1…Ke5 then 2.h7 wins. If 1…Ke4 (or other K moves), then 2.Nd3! ensures that the d4 pawn blocks the bishop’s coverage of h8.
Looks like shite wins after 1.Nf4+. If 1…Ke5 2.h7 wins. If the king goes anywhere else, 2.Ne3 and the pawn can’t be stopped.
1.Nf4+ and 2.Nd3 wins
if 1…Ke5 2.h7
How easy is the win after black plays Bc3? I can’t ever remember playing such a position of Q+K vs K+B+p connected in the center.
Yancey, that is a quite easy end game for white as white can simply push back the black king rank by rank with his king (simply operating on the white squares) and his queen.
Do not forget that you do not need zugzwang for mating with KQ (which is a big difference to mating with KR).
It does not matter (much) if the opponent has one bishop or one bishop + pawn as there is no need to win the bishop first in an KQ vs KB end game.
[In this case while black does not move the pawn it is even standing the bishop in the way. After moving the pawn white can simply win it (or even the bishop) after giving some checks.]
With a knight it may be a bit harder if you add a pawn (or better two) to support it but the bishop’s one-colour-only-weakness is to bad in this case.
Best wishes from Germany
Jochen