Two Knights or Two Bishops or Both Together?

Originally posted by Tyrannosauruschex
I had a look at that game the other day funnily enough. We should bring back the greatest games thread in this forum - that was a nice sort of combination that belongs in it.

His position was so bad with his K exposed and stuck on the edge of the board, my Bs and Rs just exerting tremendous force while his Ns were immobile that I was looking for a way to finish him off. Prior to his allowing, and then ignoring the pin for way too long, I wasn't sure I'd be able to break through.

He tried a nice swindle toward the end with Qg5 (since if Qc2?? Nxd3 just wins) but because of his earlier h6 it was easy to chase the Q off with the needed tempo for Qc2. I think he would have better off to give up the piece and try to counter-attack on the Kside as after Qxc6 he was busted.

Ne5 was just the wrong plan for him. My backward d3 pawn might have been a tasty target for him but it was backward on a closed file so I could defend it easily. In an ending it would have been a liability perhaps but. I think Qe5, f5, and either using the e file to invade or putting the rooks on f8 and g8 with a pawn storm would have been the way for him to go. Instead he became too fixated on that d3 pawn.

Originally posted by tomtom232
Most bishop sacs are easily spotted because the usually come on f7 or f2 and the bishops move in a straight line...seeing a knight sac coming is much more difficult because most of them come in different places (for some strange reason I cannot explain) and the knight moves in an irregular way...seeing it move 3 times in a row and then sac itself is pretty ...[text shortened]... ay! there are probably more knight sacs ever than any other type of sac(maybe except rook sacs)

I definitely see your points. I myself have been the victim of knight pairs when I didn't fully consider the pairs' capabilities. They are much more insidious than the bishop pairs, I would think.

Originally posted by scandium
I had a similar structure in this game: Game 4431548

I'd tried to encourage him to trade his Bs for my Ns and was starting to regret that choice, but in the end he made a mistake that allowed me to break through. After that my Bs were so strong that I could sac my Q for mate in 3.

Nice!!!

Thanks to DaBearsFan08, T-chex and scandium for your comments. I see the B pair is preferred by the majority over the N pair. But I do know those Knights can be baffling...I tend to lose mine too early in the game. Always considered Bishops to be of more value...to which you refer. But I do want to consider the Knight-pair and try some different things. 🙂

As always in chess, it all comes down to position. As a general rule knights are more powerful in endgames with a closed pawn structure in the middle or when "support points" exist where knights can sit on powerful squares that cannot be easily attacked. For example, a supported knight sitting on the 6th rank with no pawns able to attack it is potentially very powerful.

On the other hand, bishops are more powerful in open positions when they can cover lots of space from a distance and move quickly from one side of the board to the other.

The B+N pair is somewhere in the middle of those, and with the added advantage that you are not committed to either an open or closed game.

The Bishop pair and the B+N have the strong advantage that you can mate with those in basic material endgames, but you can't mate with a King and 2N.