In chess, moves are always played WITH PURPOSE. There is always a logic behind why a move is played. This is the start of a series diving into the details about the power of each individual pieces in chess, starting from the knight.

The knight is a tricky piece. It is the only piece on the chess board that can hop over (lakdaw) other pieces. While it has this unique ability, its range is also limited. It cannot jump from one side of the board to another unlike bishops, rooks, and of course, the queen, which can easily reach the end of the board in just one move, given that these pieces have no obstructions.

Outpost

An outpost is a "protected" or "supported" square where a knight, once it landed on that square, cannot easily be removed or challenged. Outposts are the dream squares of knights, where they can control a lot of squares and impose problems for the opponent. Chess players love to describe knights being on outposts as "octopuses" since from outposts, they control lots of key squares all at once, without needing to move. Here are a few examples of how knights can dominate the board given that they find the right outpost in which they belong.

As you can see, the white knight on d5 dominated the dark squared bishop of black. White easily has an edge simply because the white knight is more powerful than the black bishop.

This forum will be updated, if possible, to show you more games about this concept of improving pieces. Hope you enjoyed the game and do your own analysis/study about the game too. Thank you and God bless. See you around!

IJA CHESS VARSITY

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