White has a King and a Queen. Black has a King and a Knight.
It is White's move. Can White win or is this ending a draw?
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3 Answers
Without any pawns Queen vs Knight endgame is a theoretical win for the Queen.
Actually, most chess sites that have checkmates practice offer this very problem as one of them, along side many other classical ones such as Queen vs Rook, Two Bishops, etc.
Take a look at this mate problem in lichess
Here is an example of how you can win:
[FEN "8/8/3kn3/8/8/3KQ3/8/8 w - - 0 1"]
1. Kc4 Kd7 2. Qe5 Nc7 3. Qf6 Ne6 4. Kd5 Nc7+
5. Ke5 Nb5 6. Qb6 Nc7 7. Qb7 Kd8 8. Kd6 Ne8+
9. Kc6 Nc7 10. Qxc7+ Ke8 11. Qg7 Kd8 12. Qd7#
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In your link to lichess white has both the queen and knight, the question is different. In chess.com the example is available only with premium subscription:( Oct 29, 2018 at 12:35
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@MátéJuhász Thanks for the comment. Indeed i had put the wrong lichess link, which i already updated to the correct problem. As to chess.com, there is nothing i can do about, since a big part of the content is paid. Even i cant actually open the problem, but anyone that has a subscription can.– IsacOct 29, 2018 at 12:46
This is generally a win for White (unless Black's already forked the king and queen, of course.) White's king and queen can force the Black king to the edge of the board, and after that, either the knight is too close to the king to prevent checkmate threats, or too far to be protected by the king and gets forked by the queen.
Two words: Nalimov Tablebase. http://chessok.com/?page_id=361 will allow you to set up any endgame position and will let you see the result. Queen and King vs King and Knight results in a checkmate in at most (that I can find) 17 moves.
