How Does The Knight Move In Chess?
31/05/2023 - Actualizado: 21/06/2023
Let's meet the piece that seems to be one of the weakest in chess, but as we are going to see if it is handled correctly, its psychological impact can be very annoying for our opponents, we are talking about the powerful Knight.
The chess Knight has the shape of a horse's head.
In chess books we can recognize by the letter N or by the form ♘, ♞ (depending on which side it is).
Its numerical value is 3 as is the Bishop (this can sometimes be a relative value and not the most important).
The Knight is one of the first pieces to move after the Pawns, and in some specific openings it is even the first piece to come into play.
How the knight moves
The movement of the horse is one of the most special, the Knight moves in an L-shape.
It has the super power to pass over allied or enemy pieces.
It has a very special way of moving around the board as we can see in the image.
To simplify its movement we can count three squares from the Knight and two for the side or two squares from the knight and three for the side.
This movement is for all sides of the board as we can see in the following picture
As we can see in the previous image, if the knight is in the center, it can occupy all its power by controlling a total of 8 squares in the center.
Bad knight
Now let's see what happens if the Knight is in a corner.
As we can see its power is greatly reduced, from controlling 8 squares it controls only 2. We always have to take the Knights to the center and thus take full advantage of all its power.
As we can see the action of the knight is not as long range as the other pieces, this is one of the reasons why it is one of the first pieces to be put into play.
The role of the knight in chess
What the knight wants is to be as advanced as possible in the opponent's field and above all as close as possible to the enemy King.
The Knight is a very flexible piece when it comes to attack and defense. It is a good attacking piece thanks to its ability to avoid pieces that are between it and its target and it is also a good defensive piece, we can leave it defending our king while the stronger pieces go on the attack against the enemy king.
We can also use it to besiege the rival pieces that are of greater value, such as the rook and the Queen, forcing them to move so as not to be captured by the Knight.
The knight gains advantage over all the other pieces when the position is closed (when the pawns cannot be exchanged to open columns or rows), thanks to the fact that it can pass over the pawns without the need for them to move to get into action.
The psychological power of the knight
The knight is the queen piece of double attacks (when two things are attacked at the same time), there is always a latent possibility that our opponent may be careless and we take advantage of it to hunt a rival piece or the king itself.
It is a very annoying piece as it is in the opponent's field and restricts his entire position. It is as if we had a kraken ready to enter to give the final blow at any moment.
It can serve as a control piece to keep our opponent's position restricted, while we group the other pieces to make the final attack.
Should it be more valuable?
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