Queen vs. Rook and Bishop/Knight Endgames

Hi, I am Regis (a.k.a. dennis9989, which Dennis is my dad) and today I want to discuss the Queen vs. Rook and Bishop and Queen vs. Rook and Knight endgames, like this:

Hi Regis

Even with just a bishop and knight, one can comfortably hold off an enemy queen by creating a fortress:

The knight is defended by the bishop, and the bishop is defended by the king. The white king cannot be displaced by the lone black queen, and the black king is kept at bay with a barrier created by the two minor pieces that collectively cover a3, b3, c3, c2, and c1. 

With a rook replacing either of those pieces, we can use the same concept to create a fortress. Because the rook is so much more powerful, there are a lot more configurations that work, but the two simplest ones that come to mind are:

If the defender (the side without the queen) has an extra pawn, like in your third/fourth position, the position is still a draw. It is simply not possible to coordinate your pieces to push your pawn and protect yourself from perpetual check at the same time. 

With an extra pawn, the attacker can play for a win, especially if his opponent's forces are far from the pawn. In such situations, the defender should aim to set up his fortress right in front of the pawn which might be enough to hold the draw:

What about positions like this one?

Are the tripled pawns intended?

lol that is such an unrealistic position

black requires 4 captures of pieces to get pawn structure and wBf1 needs to die at home, hows that happening in a real game

wait

its even worse

the 4 captures must be 4 of

whites queen, knight, rook, f pawn and h pawn

good luck, that position is never happening at all in a real game 

From personal experience rook + knight versus queen is a draw. I had this setup in a game once and I set up a fortress/blockade and got a draw.

You gotta learn them by heart. Which is very doable until you start adding pawns. It is very hard to predict the outcome with pawns especially when they are well advanced. And sometimes they are better on their own second rank as defenders (like in R+P vs Q). So first learn the outcomes between pieces. Handling pawns will get better when your game rating improves.

I use a standard procedure. Say I want to know the probable outcome of R+B+N vs R+N. I enter many ordinary positions with this material in a tablebase like Syzygy and look what is says. It tells me it is hard for the R+N side to hold a draw and I conclude it is a probable win for the superior side. Now, don't ask me how to win since that may prove extremely difficult. But you do have a fair chance

I just had an intense game with rook & bishop against a queen. You have to be constantly aware of forks, fortunatelly I managed to create a little blockade with bishop & pawn combo.

Yoow

2 knights can also hold their own against a queen .