The Horse

* Don't worry because of the long scroll bar - this lesson is very short - all you do is watch diagrams - almost nothing to read here.

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I want to make a study about the horse - it's the most confusing piece, so I think that if we visualize it clearly enough, we can use it better; and avoid being attacked by it, better.

Let's see its forking options in a wall-clock (clock face) manner:

(The knight is the center of the clock, the king is the tip of the hour-hand - saying the hour is 1 or 13. the other black piece is the tip of the minute-hand - which is changing)

I've also added degrees - for the geometrical folks. (but I chose smaller degrees - 150 instead of 210. 90 instead of 270 - because smaller numbers are easier to remember)

Again, we all already know these forks, it's the visualization that counts - What do you remember more - you're friends' names or their faces? their faces, of course. we are very  "graphical beings" aren't we?

Okay, from what I see, the hard ones for my mind to remember, is the 90°and the 150°.

I will now add imaginary pieces, which will combine known shapes - making it easier for us to remember these patterns:

let's call it the Bent-Square.

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Let's call it The Diamond. (or Diagonal-Diamond, or The Rhombus - which ever you're more related to)

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Now, what you get in real games, are half Bent-Squares, and half Diagonal-Diamonds. let your imagination do the rest for you.

I guess diagrams 3, 4 are also not intuitive, let's add pieces to them:

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But what if it's an a / h pawn?

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Good demonstration . . .

Here's the knight's Tour  the easy way . . .

Best to start on Blue D8 or Red F8, Green Or Black H8 . . .

Go around to the next color . . .

You might like to join the Knights tour group . . .

https://www.chess.com/club/the-knights-tour-group

Hello Rich. Thank you!

so you're 83. I was born in 83', so now I'm 38.

Good stuff!  A valuable lesson in knight geometry. 

Thx Bryan.

(I'm talking now about move 12: d5 Nb4)

The black horse can go to both c2 and d3 - so he's very strong.

White played the aggressive d5 - attacking my horse; but now, the idea of his own horse coming to e5 (- blocking the queen and rook) is horseradish - his horse isn't protected by a pawn.

(besides, attacking the horse with a pawn is fun, but before you do it, you need to see if the horse don't have an even better square than the one he's on right now - obviously in this game, the square b4 was far better for my horse than c6, so kicking my horse with d5 was a waste of a move by him)

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* by playing Bc5, I lured him into playing d4, so I could give "check" and then 0-0 - in the Falkbeer Gambit or similar lines, he who 0-0 quicker is having the attack - the rook comes to the e file, then the queen... but that's off topic.

double horse

Fork with horse = Force.

Pin + Fork = Pork.

Double fork = Dork.

IM Marc Esserman with his Smith Morra Gambit, doing wonders by sacrificing... the horse (!)

(the sac. must be accepted, or else - the horse may go wild - petrifying the entire kingdom)

That's what I saw in the 3 first games of this video, covered by CM Kingcrusher:

Kids, don't try this at home, unless you're highly tactical and well-prepared. Still, it's impressive to watch.

Look at minute 28:15 where the horse makes all the difference! (one horse killed to open the lines to the king, the other horse threatens mate - smart horse-play by IM Esserman), suddenly, the queens (and the black knights) aren't important, only the horse!

The power of a centralized knight:

Because of this knight, the opponent needs to be vigilant - on his toes / on his guard, all the time - this is hard to do - hence why he blundered. [in chess, you need to provoke your opponent to blunder - if no one is mistaken, then it's a zzzzZZz draw]

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