Did everyone but me find it so obvious that K+N+N+B wins so easily against K+B? What made it so obvious (besides engines)? One might go an entire chess career without encountering this. Doesn’t seem intuitively easy or obvious to me.
I have to set it up on my Fritz and see how Fritz "easily" wins.
In All Things Chess “Olympiad Round 9” I posted " c8 = N+ Nice winning move!"
This was move 62. Almost 20 moves before Kramnik resigned. Perhaps it helps to be blind.
It helps that the bishops are of opposite colors. White is essentially three pieces up (the defending bishop can’t challenge the attacking bishop) unless Black trades B for N, in which case it’s KBN v K.
Since there were no pawns on the board, maybe he was hoping to last fifty moves?
Or maybe it’s just hard to admit defeat sometime. There’s always a chance for a blunder, even if playing against the best in the world. If one or both of them were in time trouble…?
Kramnik is a fan of Makruk, the Thai form of Chess. In that game, the game ends in a draw if someone cannot get a checkmate in a certain number of moves after the last piece is taken. The allowed number of moves depends on how many pieces are left. If you have lots of pieces against a lone king, you have to mate quickly to win. It becomes a significant strategic element in the game. Maybe Kramnik just got into a pattern of stretching it out in order to pull out a draw.