Tactics | Knight + Queen checkmate ♟️ 50+2 Chess Quick Wins! Book
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50+2 Chess Quick Wins: Tactical ideas for exciting chess for beginner players. Buy on Amazon! US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | NL | AU
My book, "50+2 Chess Quick Wins: Tactical ideas for exciting chess for beginner players" was published and released on Amazon in October 2023. This is the eighth video and article of a series that will cover the first section of the book, that explains tactical ideas and themes that underlie many quick win games!
The queen is rightly considered the most powerful piece in the game of chess. By being able to move in both the cardinal and diagonal directions, the queen incorporates the moves of all the other pieces, with a singular exception. That is, of course, the knight. The knight has two abilities that the queen does not. Firstly, by move in its L-shape, the knight has vision on squares that the queen is blind to.
Secondly, the knight is unique in that it can leap over other pieces. This gifts the knight greater mobility than most other pieces in the opening stages of the game when the board can be cluttered.
Together, the queen and the knight synergise to be an especially effective attack unit against the opponent's king in the opening stages of the game. An assassination unit if you will! The queen on her own is rarely able to checkmate on her own. Together with the knight, with its mobility and ability to infiltrate into the opponent's position, the queen can sometimes be lethal!
Consider this indicative tactical attack pattern from White's perspective, which is not uncommonly encountered.
Black's king has castled kingside, and we can imagine that this pattern occurs in the late-opening or early-middlegame. This arrangement has White's knight and queen both having vision on the f7 and g7 squares. Importantly, as the knight's attack is not affected by intervening pieces, it has vision on both f7 and g7 regardless of any attempt by Black to move their defensive pawns (f-, g-, or h-pawns). In this position in a game, if Black doesn't have any other defences, forced checkmate is inevitable. Even where Black has other defences, White can often win a major concession - for instance, damaging the king's defences, or winning material.
Furthermore, consider how the queen and knight reached that position. The queen can reach h5 with a single move (d1 → h5), and the king's knight with just two (g1 → f3 → g5).
Let's look at an example game of the Busch-Gass Gambit from Black's perspective that demonstrated this basic attack for a checkmate on move 8! In the video, I've highlighted Black's queen, and king's knight throughout the game for emphasis. We can see that by move 7, Black has a massive attack on White's h2 and f2 squares. White could avoid checkmate with (8. h3), but even the best case would result in damaged kingside defences and loss of material.
The second example was broadcast on English TV as a very quick win by Magnus Carlsen with the Black pieces, against former Microsoft founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates! Magnus plays a tricky opening and manoeuvres their knight and queen to the mating position. Gates's knight on f3 defends the critical h2 square, but Magnus attacks/lures away Gates' defensive knight with his own knight. Gates captures, but by doing so, hangs checkmate on move 9!
These are two specific and simple examples of this tactical pattern. 50+2 Chess Quick Wins includes many other games where the winning attack involved a knight + queen attack!
