Move Your Knight Up the Career Ladder

Why do pawns get all the promotions around here?

Chess middlegames are hard to codify. When I was six years old I could’ve rattled off some rules for the opening: control the center, develop your pieces, castle early. But if I had the misfortune to play someone who also could play a reasonable opening, we ended up in a middlegame where there were no more rules, only choices. One strategy has begun to hit me over the head more often when I find myself with choices: find your knight a good square.

The Knight’s Strategy
More broadly, the strategy could be “whichever minor is your worst, improve it.” When that worst piece is a knight, it may take a few moves before you could consider it your best piece. What your knight really needs is a career path… a retirement plan… a 401k account! Whenever it can, it squirrels away a little more improvement until one day all the pawns look around and say “how did they make it to management?”

After your solid opening, your knight is probably on the 2nd or 3rd rank. It can’t advance any farther in one move and you don’t move pieces twice in the opening, right? The knight’s career path is finding a support point on the 6th rank. If you’re skillful or lucky this could happen in as few as two moves, but it could be worth it even if it took four moves over the course of the game.

Why the 6th rank?
Knights can only ever attack eight squares. While on the 1st, 2nd, 7th, or 8th, some of their potential is wasted past the edge of the board. So the 6th rank is as far as the knight can invade the enemy camp while still making use of all eight of its potential squares.

Everything here could still apply to the 4th or 5th rank. It’s still further up the board and the knight is using all eight squares, but it’s just not as advanced as it could be. In your game, that may be as good as it gets. Sorry :( Maybe the bishop got the raise instead?

Find and Create Outposts
Your knight is happiest on a support point: where it’s defended by pawn. The ultimate support point is an Outpost: where your knight is in the enemy’s side of the board, defended by a pawn, and where none of the enemy’s pawns can kick it away. 

If your opponent has been pushy pushy with their pawns, they may have created an outpost square for you already! If so, that’s your target. Fill out the resume and start networking, your knight will maneuver there however possible.

But maybe one doesn’t exist yet? Put pressure on weak pawns! If you can force the right pawns to push, they will be forced to create outposts for you. This is where the strategy becomes concrete and that is the hallmark of a great middlegame.

Success!
Once the knight has reached the top of their career ladder, they don’t want to make any waves. The last thing they need before retirement is the CEO getting mad. So don’t try to force anything! Sure, a fork could pop up, but more likely the threat of a fork or the defense of a square is plenty for this knight to be worth its salt.

In Summary
You can navigate the complexities of the middlegame by improving the position of your worst piece. When that piece is a knight, envisioning a “career path” towards a strong outpost on the 6th rank can be a highly effective. 

Don’t Take It From Me
Read more in-depth about making the most of your knights  in IM Jeremy Silman’s How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition, Part 2, “Minor Pieces”