10 Ways To Use Your Knights Effectively 

The best way to describe a knight move is 2 squares to the opposite color. This allows you to envision the octopus pattern more directly. Also, it allows you to calculate multiple knight moves more quickly. E.G. Two moves with the knight puts you on the same color. Three moves puts you on the opposite color. Notice also that a queen traveling two squares always goes to the same color.

I just made a comment on the bishop video about wanting more themed videos and voilà here it is… The knight theme… My game strength in the past year has improved immensely thanks in part to Chess Vibes, the no nonsense chess learning channel. Also the explanations are lucid and practical. Thank you Nelson…

When I started playing chess I really didn't understand knights, I never realized their importance, now I prefer knights over bishops (and sometimes rooks) simply because they're such powerful pieces. Well done video Nelson!

you are a great Chess Maestro!! thank you for your videos! I like when you ask us to pause the video and try to guess the best move for white, its really helpful 🙂

When I was 6 or 7, knight and bishop were my favourite pieces. Knight was because of it’s movement, hopping on pieces and the little horse representing it. I loved using it because everyone had trouble visualising their movement patterns on a crowded board. And loved bishop because people tend to not see the tight gaps it can barge through and attack. And in my language we refer to it as “the Elephant” instead of “the bishop.” So I always felt like I was finding clever and unexpected ways to defeat my opponent with my war elephants. Always saw the board like an actual battle ground with little figures fighting. And for some reason I had never had trouble visualising the Knight’s movement. Always saw that L shape very clearly. No matter where. Unfortunately I took a huge break from chess. A 17 years break, in fact. I can’t remember why. But after that 17 years, just one and a half weeks ago, I restarted. To my very welcome surprise, all those visualisation were still intact. Especially on the Knight. And after a week, the L shape evolved into a “flower” shape around the Knight. Highlighting every single square it can hop to. It’s getting easier to visualise multiple steps forward with it. I’m just very happy to have my enthusiasm for chess to be back. I want to be good at it.

I kind of intuitively knew most of it but you explained it very well and so clearly that it open my eyes to newer ideas such as the defending knight back on the 1st/8th rank and the octopus knight. Thank you so much. So glad I subscribed to your channel a while back. Keep doing your thing man.

The Knight is my favorite piece to use and is the piece I have the best accuracy with. With these top knight moves I am excited to really become lethal with it. Great video!

Your EXPLANATIONS are simply INFORMATIVE! I enjoy listening them.

Thx Nelson, my favourite tip is #4. I suppose one can work it out OTB, however, just knowing it, makes a huge difference!!

Excellent video. I learned several new concepts (to me) about knights. Thank you.

Oustanding video! You're a FANTASTIC instructor! Thank you:)

This is a very useful video nelson !! I think if you make a video about colour weaknesses around the king , it will be great !! In one of my games , I was white and black's king castled short , his only defender was the dark squared bishop, I had two rooks ready to attack his king , but he pinned one of my rooks to my queen , he took my rook and I retake back with the other rook , and actually , I went to win this game !!! Because he traded his only defender to my rook , and I had two attackers ( rook and queen) against zero defenders , and I won the game after bringing the knights , I am sorry if the comment is too long , but i think that this concept is so important , keep up the good work bro !!

Thanks for sharing such useful info about chess , really enjoying your videos. Thanks alot man

already learned a ton watching your vids---great stuff and so simply explained

Good stuff I liked your way of avoiding knight checks from another video but blocking queens w knight is helpful too

Another great video, always direct and clear, thanks

A particularly strong octopus knight that is causing a lot of trouble to the other side is sometimes called Kraken.

4:41 fried liver attack! one of my favorite openings to play!

A nice mix of things I already knew, and some I didn't. Great channel.

Excellent video. Just to add a note concerning knight forks being there are six different scenarios where forks are possible; two linear , say opponent has pieces on d2 and d4, or d2 and d6. And four triangular on a 2 X 2, 2 X 4, 4 X 4 and 3 X 5 squares combination.

In Mpc Battle Chess I learned that the Knight is sometimes called "The Bugaboo of The Beginner" Great vid, thank you for the information :)

Great tips, Nelson. Thank you!

10 Ways To Use Your Knights Effectively 1. 1:07 forks 2. 6:04 knights should usually go to f3/c3 or f6/c6 3. 7:10 knights side by side 4. 8:41 defending against a queen 5. 10:11 blockading (past) pawns 6. 11:09 "knight on f8, there's no mate" or "knight on f1, opponent has no fun" 7. 12:45 queen + knight combo 8. 14:38 smothered mate 9. 16:08 outposts 10. 17:58 octopus knight

Very well presented; thank you for sharing.

Thank youuu❤❤❤.. Thank you very much!!

underrated chess goat

Thanks for this beautiful videos!

Great video thank you 🙏

Thanks for your generous sharing.

Your material is so amazing. You're my hero.

Excellent instruction as usual! I am relatively new to chess, playing about a year and I wonder if you have any tips on how to quickly "visualize" the threat of enemy Knights. In blitz/rapid games I find myself trading Bishops for Knights or spending a lot of pawns moves to keep Knights out of my part of the board because I struggle to visualize knight moves and threats.

Thank you for this lesson, Nelson! I didn't know side-by-side knights were so strong until brought up just how many squares they control together. It's almost like an invisible force shield.

Thanks great video.

I think this was the most helpful chess Video I have ever seen. I'm gonna watch some more from you

A Queen can only get a knights move close to a lone king. So the knight naturally fills that gap. Just my thinking of why Queen + Knight is so powerful.

thanks for this video because i love to use knights for attacking i learned a lot from this lesson

Thank you for this Video.

Thank you Nelson!

Great video about the Knight.

great video. I love knights even though their are the most difficult pieces to master.

Ty nelson you have an Excellent and helpful content on all of your videos 🙏… but i have questions, i figured something wen you show the “smotheredmate” , there’s no pawn on f7 so cant we just directly check with Qg8 and knight from g5 to f7 ?

11:05 - I just wanna add in that position it was maybe better to play f3 first, because Black can play Ne4 and force a trade. And if a trade happens, Black wins. If we had avoided that move, the position would have been equal and maybe white even had chances winning that endgame after Nb3 that you showed. Because that move happens anyways. The weakness on e3 is eliminated, because nothing black has access to that square.

Very usful video thank u

Another critical issue that intermediate/beginners face is when the enemy bishop pins my knight to the queen from g4 or g5. Now I was reading Daryl’s comment below and your answer which said h3 will slow down development. True enough, but this position is always cramping and I am not able to identify the exact weaknesses in my opponent to be able to exploit it. How do we deal with this… can you do a video on this too sometime in the future…

Great video. Just want to say on the opening fork move when you have the bishop and the knight attacking F2 pawn, is it ok to move the H2 pawn to H3 to stop the knight’s attack?

20:00 couldn't karpov just have played be2 and traded off his bishop for the knight instead of sacrificing a queen for it later down the line??

Great video, you could've mentioned the Traxler, but that's kinda out of the topic so thanks for all the information!

It's funny, I actually had a smothered mate recently in a game. It's the first time in a long time I've actually been able to mate my opponent with a smothered mate. It wasn't even an opening trap. It just popped up in a normal feeling position several moves into a game.

But some times I also do these but I could not reach it purpactlly so how I can reach the most controling is castl so how I can win that?

GREAT VIDEO. I GET WHAT YOUR SAYING..AS FAR AS I USUALLY LIKE TO KEEP AT LEAST 1 KNIGHT. LEARNING HOW TO USE BOTH LIKE YOU DID LINING THEM UP..

The weapon of the knight is the double attack. Double----yin and yang. There are four elements to a knight fork double attack. 1) The ready knight. 2) The attack square or power point. 3) & 4) The yin and yang squares occupied with suitable targets. ( All the squares a knight can attack from one power point are said to be on the cusp. All squares on a cusp are candidate Y squares. ) There are four levels of knight attacks. 1) You just fall into it. 2) You are fighting for the power point. 3) You are fighting to get a suitable target on to a Y square. And 4) you have a free power point, you have the Y squares occupied but the knight is one move short of being on the ready square. What you need to solve 4) is the threat step. What you need to solve 3) is maybe a sac suck to the Y square, or a Kamakazze attack from the Y square, or a chase to the Y square. This assumes you already have one Y square occupied. What you need for 2) is to remove the guard of the power point, or block out the guard or deflect the guard away by a capture or a sacrifice. And what you need for 1) are eyes. One motif I'll mention is Knight Out Knight In. A 2) type position with a knight as guard. Capture the knight drawing another peice to the Y square and fork.

Thankyou sir

Workin on our knight moves, Tryin to make some frontpage drive-in news 🎵 🎶

Thanks

13:12 because Queen can already move like Rook and Bishop, so adding Knight in the combo gives you more options by covering more squares?

This is gold!

4:40, or you play 7. ...Bd5 and play the Traxler gambit. Which is the almost most toxic and tricky counterattack for black.

Wonderful vedio. Can you suggest me a good book for knight maneuver and double knight attack

The reason why #3 is so effective is that the knights are on different colored squares, so you're potentially controlling 16 squares of the board (d4 and e4, for instance). Another good position is to let them defend each other. That doesn't work as well as being side-by-side, though.

Nice tips!

how do you do the arrows

Nelson, thanks.

A good eay to explain knights is one space diagonal and one space horizontal but not towards or away from the knight

4:25 - Believe or not c5 also deals with the issue, because the white pawn is still on e2. Thus b5 is unprotected and you can respond to Nb5 with Qa5 and in order not to lose the knight white is forced to move it back. So, basically the only move is e3 and you need to know tons of theory from then on.

At 19:58 couldn't he move the pawn at g4 get that bishop to retreat then take the knight with the queen ?

I think the dynamic behind what's going on behind queen+knight combos is that then the queen is next to the king and and knight is defending the queen, usually the king must love to a square that is a knight's move away from the queen, if the queen wasn't there, then the knight could check the king by moving to where the queen would have been, but with the queen there, the knight can't do that. However, if there is a way a knight can check the king with the knight, there is almost a second way to check the king. So that's why I think queen+knight attacks are so effective.

Hey Nelson thanks for the awesome video. Have you ever heard of the Ulvestad Variation vs the Fried Liver? It goes 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 b5 what do you think of that variation? Thanks again for the free videos!

What color is the knight on 8 moves a head? Its a 1 to 2

The first example teaches you how our brain prefers humiliating the opponent (by forking King and Queen) over winning (with a mate in 2 moving the rooks).

Grats on going fulltime with making Chess content! I'll leave this as well on Patreon, but I wonder if you could collab with other creators and do what are usually called sub battles, but since you don't use twitch you could just use your patrons and commentate over the games.

17:45 but I play the silician like this pushing the bishop's pawn when I handle black piece.... So obviously a weakness square creates for knight to jump.. What can I do bro 😶

Nelson dear im your big fan, doing great job in teaching chess.regards

I love knights too. I have saved many end games with a knight. opponents getting tired and I lose count of how many times they walk into my obvious fork trap. They are hard to see, one slip in concentration and they strike. Also knights are great for producing invisible mating nets where a pawn can produce a checkmate out of nowhere. love the knights.

At example 5, isn't that a bad blockade because Black can just force a Knight exchange?

thank you. now i know how the horsey moves

Wow🎉,fascinating 🎉

The knights ... I love em ...I use em as my ASSASSINS .... I totally agree about the bishop... I definitely consider my knite more worth than the bishop...fork moves are extremely effective too 😊

Not going to lie this video just saved my game started a trade mid trade I realized I had missed a bishop I missed in the corner and it was going bad saw the queen and knight would be setup in one move I guess they missed it because they continued attacking the trades next move with the queen checking the king protected by the knight man I should not have won that it was a blunder that was just saved by pure luck and they traded off the right pieces to clear the path for it guess that was a blunder on their part got to into taking my pieces to notice but thx this video really did save me

I also like piling them up on weaknesses if possible.

what's also unique about the knight is that is the only piece that can attack the queen without being protected. for instance when a rook moves to attack a queen, the queen could just attack the rook in the next move, because she can move the same way like the rook, but it would not be possible against a knight

Ithought completely the same thing growing up, my knight was so fun to use so i would keep both alive at almost all costs

Awesome ,

But there is also the Traxler Counterattack against the Fried Liver

I vividly remember playing chess with my friends freshman year and I was playing this one kid and after I moved my knight, he said: “I hate horses, they’re so slimy” it made everyone laugh and I think he was joking but he was right, knights are really slimy

Oh man i should have watched this way earlier. I'm playing chess for a few months and this always screwed me. Nooooow i understand xD This is really helpful

I too am one of those weirdos whose favorite piece is the knight, also because of how great and nasty it is when it comes to forks, as demonstrated in Gane 16 of the 1985 WCC with Kasparov's. legendary "octopus" knight.

Today I won a game with Queen+Knight combo.. Yesterday I watched this video. Thanks Lopez bro... He offered me a draw but suddenly I realised that I can win with Queen + Knight combo.. 😀 👍 Finally I checkmated him. Appreciate you for making such informative and clear videos for us.. Way to go bro!

My favourite piece.

The geometry of knight+queen vs. bishop+queen is that the knight provides protection on both colour complexes.

@ 19:29 couldn't Karpov just push g4 kicking away the bishop and then taking the knight with the queen? I fail to see why this couldn't be done

2:12 pawn on A file is defended by bishop and soon king

I came to this video because I’m looking for an answer to something I heard on a Chess podcast. They spoke of the “6 forking patterns of the knight”. Does anyone know where I can find this knowledge or concept?

Your channel is highly underrated, Sir

I think it easy to escape from the last example, Bf4, fork the B and K and it is protected by the K on C3, what do you think?

Awesome

Block queen with knight. Great tip.

Literally any time i take my eye off the knight or fail to defend the squares that it goes to, I always end up getting forked or some kind of other trick. Thats why any position i play I make sure to have multiple attacks on the g4 and b4 squares

Thank you, Maestro Nelsi! More positional wisdom like this please!! Who cares about tactics? ;-) jk

7:45 and the Mumbo mustache is born

I have faced and countred all these.Nd knights are best in endgames ( with rooks)