The Knight

I've long had problems deciding how to use the Knight for maximum effect. I've been uncomfortable with the piece. Recently I have come to believe that the Knight should be used as a berserker, charging the front lines, kicking his own Pawns out of the way, trying to be the first to attack (and often die) valiantly in a game deciding attack; a piece which admires and takes inspiration from the Pawns that we so callously sacrifice.

What do you think?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I've long had problems deciding how to use the Knight for maximum effect. I've been uncomfortable with the piece. Recently I have come to believe that the Knight should be used as a berserker, charging the front lines, kicking his own Pawns out of the way, trying to be the first to attack (and often die) valiantly in a game deciding attack; a piece ...[text shortened]... res and takes inspiration from the Pawns that we so callously sacrifice.

What do you think?

The knight is my favorite piece.... There are so many devilish tactics it is involved in.... The knight has been the center piece for most of my "brilliant" sacs.

The knight is a bedeviling piece. This is certain! For me, my biggest problem is visualizing it more than two moves ahead. One of my achilles heals is thinking that it can only cover a small area. But 2 or three moves and a knight covers a large territory.

Not a berzerker, but rather, special forces for me.

The knight is the most difficult piece to learn to use effectively. But if you know how to use your knight, you can really screw people up. It just has a way of sneaking up on people and really messing with you.

In general, knights are the perfect piece to block your opponent's past pawn. It is also very useful when you can give it an outpost on your opponent's side of the board. This aspect of the knight is closely tied to pawn structure.

Keep your knights centralized because they can't cover the board very quickly. Centralization is also helpful because is maximizes the number of squares that the knight can support or attack.


As far as Knight vs Bishop goes, knights are better when there's a closed game. Bishops can be hemmed in by pawns, but a knight doesn't suffer from that limitation. While on bishop is limited to a single color, knights can attack any color square.

So no, I don't think Knights are simply pieces to be used in berserker attacks to be lost early on.

I have some games floating around that shows how to use a knight. I'm usually modest but I love my knights in fact I just finished a game against a friend that shows a knight being used strategically and then tactically. I will post it when I get a chance to since I'm on my phone right now not a computer.

This just flashed into my mind during a game.

"If I move my Rook with three squares in between them on the diagonal with the Queen, it offers a target for his Knight."

That's a new insight for me!

Originally posted by tomtom232
I have some games floating around that shows how to use a knight. I'm usually modest but I love my knights in fact I just finished a game against a friend that shows a knight being used strategically and then tactically. I will post it when I get a chance to since I'm on my phone right now not a computer.

That'd be nice. From your rating graph you are roughly at my level when I actually try.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
This just flashed into my mind during a game.

"If I move my Rook with three squares in between them on the diagonal with the Queen, it offers a target for his Knight."

That's a new insight for me!

Do you mean 2 squares?

I'm 100% a Knight man.
The amount of games I have won because someone once said
Bishops are better than Knights is incredible.
They never swap a poor Bishop for an excellent Knight. Never.

Bishops are better than Knights if you are over 2200.

"What's good for over an 2200 player is not necessarily good for weaker players."
It's not the exact quote - but it's close enough. J.Rowson in Zebras.

Which translates, certain positions are good because good players
can play them. Give the same position to a weaker player and
they will screw it up.

If you only study one theme on the middle game make it building
and securing Knight outposts.

Blitz Tip No.15
If your opponent has a roving Knight and you don't want to walk
into a Knight fork. (who does?).
Instead of wasting precious time working out where to go ot avoid forks.
Place the King on the same diagonal one square apart from the Knight.
Thus.



The Knight now needs three moves to deliver a check.

(Blits Tips 1-14 are on a separate Thread)

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I've long had problems deciding how to use the Knight for maximum effect. I've been uncomfortable with the piece. Recently I have come to believe that the Knight should be used as a berserker, charging the front lines, kicking his own Pawns out of the way, trying to be the first to attack (and often die) valiantly in a game deciding attack; a piece ...[text shortened]... res and takes inspiration from the Pawns that we so callously sacrifice.

What do you think?

sounds like you might be wasting precious tempi with those suicidal knights.

then again, there are often situations where you can use even 3-5 moves to reposition your knight, so don't be blind to that either.

on N vs B I agree with everything greenpawn said. focus on what you can do now with either piece, instead of vague subleties like 'knights are better in a closed positions'. closed positions are opened, and sometimes open ones can be closed. if you don't really know what endgame you're gonna get, like practically none of us U2200 players do, N vs B is just time wasted.

but when you get close enough to the endgame to see it, the minimum requirement is being able to stop all enemy pawns. sometimes that means choosing the bishop over knight. especially if you're looking for that last ditch draw, and need to sac a piece to stop the last threatening pawn (or two). but otherwise, if you don't see an immediate advantage ('knights are better in closed positions' is not such), there's probably no use in wasting a second on N vs B.

one other thing: if you feel weak in some aspect of the game, like operating bishops, it's probably better in the long run to deliberately put yourself in those problematic situations as often as you can. train your weaknesses rather than your strengths. turn the weaknesses into your strengths.

Originally posted by greenpawn34
Blitz Tip No.15
If your opponent has a roving Knight and you don't want to walk
into a Knight fork. (who does?).
Instead of wasting precious time working out where to go ot avoid forks.
Place the King on the same diagonal one square apart from the Knight.

The Knight now needs three moves to deliver a check.

Similarly, be aware of how the moves from white to black to white etc. If you move a piece to square of the opposite colour to your opponent's knight, you can be sure he can't attack it in one move (of course he might be able to take it immediately, but hopefully you'll see that!).



If you are White and you want to attack the knight on e5 then play it to d5 rather than d4 or d6 if you want to be sure of avoiding a simple fork.

Going with the square color idea, if you want to avoid any chance of getting your king and queen forked by a knight, just make sure your king and queen are on different color squares.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Do you mean 2 squares?

I told you I'm not good with my Knights 🙁.

I think it was Re8 and Qh5, so yes, two.

Originally posted by Eladar
Going with the square color idea, if you want to avoid any chance of getting your king and queen forked by a knight, just make sure your king and queen are on different color squares.

The two-squares idea allows for more options than the same-color idea. I already knew that three squares on a horizontal and one over puts two pieces in threat of Knight fork.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
That'd be nice. From your rating graph you are roughly at my level when I actually try.

Nah... You're probly better than I am now... Over the couple years I've been on here I've made three big jumps in skill... The last one may have carried me to 1900 maybe I was feeling pretty good about it but then I just needed a break and now with about four months of nothing to do with chess probably none of the stuff I grasped in the last jump stuck so I'd say I'm somewhere around 1500-1600 atm.... Hopefully since I got there once that I can get theree again but its probably going to be hard work