Cure for missing backward piece moves?

I have just lost the exchange to a backward knight move...again. Does anyone have a particular cure for this malady, other than "study more tactics" or "don't be stupid" (sound advice and reasonable cures, but I'm still ill).

I'll even take voodoo if it cures my doodoo.

It had been said that looking at the board from the other side helps you see better what your opp can do. I've tried it OTB but don't know if it made much difference for me. But it may help for your 'problem'.

So flip that board now and again.

I'm sure you've heard this before, but just in case ...

1: After your opponent moves, get into the habit of looking at the piece that just moved, and look at all the squares it is attacking. For a knight, there will be 8 squares to look at in most cases.

2: If I find one of my pieces being attacked, I go one step further - if I let him take the piece that's being attacked, what do I gain for the extra tempo - is it a promising sac?

3: When one of my pieces is captured, rather than reflexively recapturing, I look to see if the tempo gained by *not* recapturing right away gains me anything - is there a good zwischenzug?

If you do this every time, it soon becomes second nature. In my youth I played *lots* of blitz, often several hundred games over a weekend, every weekend, with money at stake 😉 and #2 and #3 above in particular I found came in very handy - an unexpected zwischenzug or sac would eat up precious time on my opponent's clock.

Originally posted by Artardo
I'm sure you've heard this before, but just in case ...

1: After your opponent moves, get into the habit of looking at the piece that just moved, and look at all the squares it is attacking. For a knight, there will be 8 squares to look at in most cases.

2: If I find one of my pieces being attacked, I go one step further - if I let him take the piece t ...[text shortened]... handy - an unexpected zwischenzug or sac would eat up precious time on my opponent's clock.

You have confirmed to me that I have become a little lazy in my play. Thanks for the input!

Originally posted by Paul Leggett
I have just lost the exchange to a backward knight move...again. Does anyone have a particular cure for this malady, other than "study more tactics" or "don't be stupid" (sound advice and reasonable cures, but I'm still ill).

I'll even take voodoo if it cures my doodoo.

It's likely that no matter how good you get at chess or how careful how play, there's still always going to be the occasional "DOHH!!" move. I'm sure every grandmaster has made their share. (although a DOHH!! move for a grandmaster is probably a LOT more subtle than a DOHH!! move for me.)

Hi Paul,

This is easy to fix.

Adopt openings allowing you to swap your Bishops for their Knights.

Your ooponents will happily go along with this, the myth of the Two Bishops
has been entrenched into chess players minds along with doubled or isolated pawns.

You can sometimes take a Knight with a Bishop doubling their pawns
completely screwing them up.
They have the two Bishops so they must be winning.
They have doubled pawns so they must be losing....it's brilliant.

Then go forward with backward Knight moves and win. It's a cinch.

Originally posted by greenpawn34
Hi Paul,

This is easy to fix.

Adopt openings allowing you to swap your Bishops for their Knights.

Your ooponents will happily go along with this, the myth of the Two Bishops
has been entrenched into chess players minds along with doubled or isolated pawns.

You can sometimes take a Knight with a Bishop doubling their pawns
completely screwin ...[text shortened]... losing....it's brilliant.

Then go forward with backward Knight moves and win. It's a cinch.

Believe it or not, I use this logic as part of my "process" for determining when and if I should exchange pieces- I mentally note that removing the other guy's knight removes a potential future blunder for me. Perhaps I should be a little more formal in the assessments that way.

It's happened so often that I no longer get upset, and now I just laugh at myself- but I'd still rather it not happen!

The Bishopless bonus is you do not have to worry about what
you do with your pawns.

It's bad to put your pawns on the same colour as your Bishop.
Not a problem for you.

Meanwhile the other guy is in a muddle. He has to put his oawns
on some square and one of his glorious Bishops is going to get upset.

If you do go for the Bishopless plan keep the Queens on.
A Queen and Knight are a wonderful attacking force. The best partnership in chess.

And nobody falls for a backward Bishop move. You can spot them easy peasy.

Actually the shorter the time control the more powerful the knight becomes 🙂

Two possible suggestions-
1) do the old thing of putting a knight on an empty board and force yourself to see the net of squares it controls, then visualize all the 2nd move squares it can reach.
2) do a couple tactics problems before you start working on your daily CC moves. Unlike otb, it's entirely possible to sit down to a position and just be "cold".