can white force a mate here?

In the 90s on ICC and Fics such positions was draw. I miss some old times.

basically you can divide this into 3 categories :

1.Both players only have a king, it's a draw even if one flags.

2.Only one of the players has king+piece(s), his opponent only has a king. This can be won ONLY if the piece is not a knight or a bishop.

3.Both players have king+piece(s). It's ALWAYS A WIN (except for KBvKB with same color bishops).

With this you have every possible case covered and you know the result if a player flags.

#12, a Q against minor piece won’t lose as well as R vs B, speaking of the stronger side.

#11, yeah, those were the days when sit in front of your h-pawn and will be mated soon with the lone Knight. You just have to let your time run out to get the coveted draw. That‘s ICC.

@Sarg0n yep, I remember here the complaints that we see now used to be complaints of "Look at this game, I have mate in one and my opponent let their time run out and got a draw how is that fair wtf Lichess" etc.

@Sarg0n ICC specifies that you can report such a case and you will get the points:

"The ICC server will immediately terminate a game in a draw if any of the
following positions occur: K-K, KN-K, KB-K, KN-KB, KN-KN, KB-KB. (K=King,
N=knight, B=bishop). Also, you cannot win on time if you have only a King,
a King and knight, or a King and bishop. (In the very rare event that you
had a forced mate in such a position, you can ask an administrator to
fix the rating result after the game.)"

Source: www.chessclub.com/help/draw

.. which, when the win is also given, i consider the right approach (more cases can be added, like eg KN|B versus * when KN party loses on time). On lichess it can partially be automated by running a computer analysis on the game. And those extremely extremely extremely rare cases, where mate could be enforced but the analysis / endgame tablebase doesnt detect it, can be reported in a dedicated forum.

"Sir, thank you for terminating my game. Can I cash in my mate in 15? I looked it up meanwhile."

Mate in 15:

lichess.org/editor/N7/5p2/8/8/8/7p/5K1k/8 w - - 0 1

PS: actually always remember, it is some US(CF) BS. If you play on lichess, FIDE, playchess you have nothing to do with it.

#15 "(In the very rare event that you had a forced mate in such a position..."

IMO chess is a game worth playing regardless whether or not an engine (or human) can find a forced mate. If I'm defending a probably-losing position I don't deserve a draw unless I prove it, regardless of the material balance.

@Sarg0n the study you gave will be detected by the lichess endgame tablebases. Give an example where there is a forced mate with just knight or bishop which can not be detected by stockfish in, lets say, under ply 20, or which can not be detected by endgame tablebases. This may be possible in some studies, but in real life games it probably has never happened in the history of chess.

further, it is your personal bullshit opinion calling USCF Bullshit and FIDE the single source of truth. Both are just random rulesets defined by random people.

Well, I am ok with the way it is handled by the world association FIDE and in Europe.

Some Americans have to learn it the hard way, but that's not my problem.

http://www.uschess.org/content/view/8079/141/

(I played that tournament I noticed that occurence)