Knowing Knight & Bishop Checkmate is Useless

K+R vd K+Q is far more complex problem. THere is lot to learn there. some basic principles do help and are sometimes enough. Most of time win is easy because as the queen has quit forking power but agains stiff defence it is very very hard with many special cases to be handled

Is knowing this endgame also useless?

lichess.org/analysis/7k/7b/8/8/8/8/3R1K1P/8_w_-_-_0_1

Knowing that particular? probably knowing something about rook pawn vs bishop probably is usefull. But given that in that situation white has about 10 winning moves I guess most people would win it without "knowing" it

petri999 and Sarg0n are right. This mate is relatively easy if the defender plays the "best" moves [i.e. maximising distance to mate with best play]. It's much harder if he plays a few "sub-optimal"moves.

So if you're defending, don't just head for the "wrong corner", the way you're supposed to. Your opponent will go bing, bing, W manouever, mate. Do something else (don't head straight for the right corner, though, because that really is suicide) and your opponent will quite likely stop and say "you're not supposed to do that" and draw by the 50 move rule.

Regarding Q v R:

It's not worth learning Q vs R for practical play. The reason is, against best defence it's *really* hard to win. But, best defence is also very hard (you have to move your Rook away from your King at a key moment, which looks absurdly risky). And if the defender doesn't play best defence, the win is pretty easy.

Basically, in a practical game between two non-godlike players, if the attacker does sensible things, the defender will just get mated or lose his Rook.

You should learn the bishop and knight checkmate, reason is: Learning it will improve your understanding of the bishop and knights coordination, and will make you use them much more efficiently. It's not the *checkmate* itself that is very useful, it's the improved understanding of the minor-pieces and how they coordinate with each-other that will help you a lot.

dunno how much co-op can be learned from that mate. basic thing is that if bishop and Kn are on sam color the form a wall - assuming they are close. enoug. Co operation from lone king mate certainsly does not help you in middle game slightest

I remember a friend of mine from the chess club at the library would practice that check mate over and over. I told him that he was not likely to ever have it happen in a game but he would still practice it. Except for the occasional YouTube where you would it explained or from a girl where a female chess player was not able to figure out the mate, I do not think I have ever encountered it.

Learning this just because it is fun is not useless. It is also training the coordination of pieces. I believe most (me certainly) want to have several minutes left on the clock to do this. I'd be impressed if someone managed this in a bullet game. Publish that game, please, if you did it!