The Knight Battery
Hi friends! It may have already happened to you today. You're reviewing a game and see an incredible, back-breaking, brilliant move. Staring at your screen you wonder, “That's cool. How did I not see that?” The answer is that higher-level players possess a deep understanding of complementary chess patterns.
image by CoachKane
They can do more than solve puzzles, they can anticipate and coordinate their pieces. This post concentrates on knight usage and maximizing them in fierce tandems. Specifically, we’ll be looking at the understudied knight battery. I'll start with some basics, but I have included some intermediate puzzles to make you think. I’m glad you’re here, and I’ll hope you’ll bookmark this post and spend time with it.
Basic Bishop and Knight Tandems
Knight Battery and Tandems in the Opening
Knight Battery and Tandems in the Endgame
Putting It All Together (A BlogChamps Game and one of mine)
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Special note of explanation: In this blog, we’re talking about a knight battery, a formation of two or more pieces on the same rank, file, or diagonal. Most players only consider batteries between long-range pieces (queens, rooks, and bishops). |
Basic Bishop and Knight Tandems
The first tandem we’ll consider is when a bishop and knight share the same diagonal. As the knight deploys, the bishop behind seeks to reach its full potential on a less restricted diagonal. However, one must be careful because moving the knight can lead to unnecessary complications.
In position below, White possesses a battery, and the knight can theoretically reach eight squares. Four choices (c4, g4, d3, and d7) would result in a skewer, and moving to three other squares (f7, g6, and f3 ) lead to an in immediate capture. That leaves the knight with only one safe square. Having the battery doesn’t mean White has any real advantage.
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Can Kabadayi shows a more promising battery in his Chessable course. Can the bishop and knight avoid trouble by holding a key square? Black to play. Which pawn should White collect? |
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It's easy to miss these basic mechanics. Frank Erwich noticed this 2023 game. Black has the knight battery (Nc6 and Bd7).
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Now let's notice how Magnus Carlsen, playing White, defeats a knight battery in this 2015 game against Vachier-Lagrave. In playing Bg5, Carlsen invites his opponent to try and win the d5 pawn via the knight battery. Play as Black and take the d5 pawn. Then you can appreciate Carlsen's brilliance. |
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Though it's not a battery, Black again uses a knight/bishop tandem in this study by Kabadayi to exploit a mistake by White. Notice how Black can respond after you play the move exf4.
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Here is another example from Erwich. Your eye should immediately be drawn to the h4-d8 diagonal because there are four pieces on it.
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Several openings feature a knight battery and tandems. Let's start with another combination from Black that highlights the attacking potential of a knight battery. This particular position is reachable from e4 openings.
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Let's turn to a d4 opening and look at the Englund gambit.
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Another opening that features a knight battery is the slow Italian. White has a number of options based on Black's various replies. Kaylan's Lethal Italian Chessable course outlines these plans in great detail. Here we'll look at one key decision point and notice how White's knight battery can be deployed to great positional advantage.
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With the White Pieces
Knight Battery and Tandems in the Endgame
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Let's start with a beginner level position (an Arabian mate) and work our way toward more challenging material. (In my Knight Maneuvers post, I offer helpful suggestions on how to think about using knights in the endgame. I strongly suggest looking there for deeper insights into how a knight can function in the endgame.)
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The Arabian mate is named for its alleged appearance in older Arabic manuscripts. This story, which has been repeated countless times, is that the movements of rooks, knights, and kings were established far before the modern game of chess, making this one of the game's oldest checkmate patterns. I haven't seen these older manuscripts, but they are mentioned by J. H. Murray (1868–1955) in his History of Chess (1913). That's probably the source for how the story became so popular. Below is a thirteenth century Arabic manuscript that gives an opening position that leads to our mate in question.
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The Arabian mate is a helpful pattern to know and quite practical. I found a game between by the great Reuben Fine in which he put the finishing touches on a win with an Arabian mate (as noted by George Renaud and Victor Kahn in Art of Checkmate, 1962).
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A Final Endgame Pattern
The Logic of Delétang's Triangle
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We have seen the power of several knight batteries and tandems, but now we come to the most difficult one of all: checkmating with a knight and bishop against a lone king The triangle is named for Daniel Delétang, an amateur who wrote about checkmating a king with only a bishop and knight in 1923. The big picture 1. The only possible checkmate squares match the color of the bishop.
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Part One: Executing the Largest Triangle 1. White should deploy the knight toward Nf7 to cover the h8 square.
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Part Two: The Two Smallest Triangles We are ready for the next step in the process: repositioning the knight and bishop to new ideal squares and using the king to push Black further toward the corner. In general we deploy the minor pieces together to form a barrier and use the king on the opposite side to shepherd the oppoent into a smaller and smaller space.
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As I was working on this blog, I began looking for knight tandems in my own games and in others. I was struck by how common they are and how I've underestimated their potential. My hope is that you'll be more attentive and think about how your pieces can work in tandem.
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Enjoy and thanks for reading! Let's keep working on the game we all love.
