Knight
06 Apr 2015Knight is the strangest piece among chessmen as it has unusual moving pattern. It is named so because a Knight rides on a horse.
Name: Knight ♘
Points: 3
Knight moves in an L shape. Just like a real horse It has the power to jump over any piece or pawn. It doesn’t capture the pieces in its way, but it can capture the pieces on its landing square.
Red lines in the above diagram show how it is an L shape. All other green lines are also in an L shape but in a different orientation.
Knight Activity
A Knight in the center can move to 8 possible squares.But in the corner it can only afford to go to 2 squares. Hence, they are stronger in the center. This applies to all the pieces. Chess pieces are strong and active in the center. You should always try to develop a piece towards the center.
It can capture an enemy piece which is on the landing square. Here in the below example, it can only capture the Queen which is at the landing square. It literally jumps over all other pieces as if they are not even there. So no harm is done to the Bishop on d5, Knight on e4 or to the Rook on e5.
After capturing the Queen
You can observe that it has jumped over some pieces to capture the Queen.
Connected pieces are very strong as they support each other.
