Knight Placement

How do you place your knights before play commences?

Why do many grandmasters think it is bad luck to have the knights facing away from each other? I have seen three ways of placing the knights.

Knights forward, facing eachother or knights diagonally facing the center.

Ideally you should balance them on their heads. It is somewhat difficult to do, but if you have a chess set that makes it possible, it will unnerve your opponent. I'd say it is worth half a pawn in material advantage at the club level. =)

I reverse them to face me. Maybe that would confuse my opponent a bit.

I prefer to place my knights facing left just like Kasparov and Kramnik.For me it looks visually appealling and kinda neat,plus since I'm a leftie it's make me easier to grab them especially in time trouble and/or blitz. 

I like to put them whre the bishops are supposed to be. That way my opponent thinks I don't know how to play.

Leftie placing is kinda genius! I always place them as "they look each other". For example, when i play with white, kings knight looks to left and queens knight looks to right. Why? Because in the middle of a fantastic match, I always think about how my knights got those wierd outposts and it helps to distinguish which knight is which!

kleelof wrote:

I like to put them whre the bishops are supposed to be. That way my opponent thinks I don't know how to play.

Lol... That was good.

I read though that many grandmasters feels it's bad luck to place them facing each other.

Whoops! That's how I've always placed them. I get annoyed when my opponent faces them straight forward

Grandmasters feel it's bad luck to place them facing AWAY from each other, not facing TO each other, I think there's a difference.

Right. Thx for the correction. So, why is that then? Bad luck in facing knights away from each other?

I place the knights so that they face each other (or away from each other) simply because they're easier for me to see that way.  But just before I hit my clock, I turn them so they face me, so they're harder for my opponent to see.  JUST KIDDING, I don't turn them before my opponent's turn.

I used to use to the position that my knight faces to determine which knight (KN or QN), I was looking at.  But I never found any benefit to knowing where a knight started, so I stopped paying attention to that.

Hmmm.

I've always had them facing forwards. Starting to think that might be a bit dull.

Facing backwards, though, that would definitely feel weird.

Hmmm.

Hello there TypsieGypsie! How about you challenge me to a game of Chess please! I be most honored to play you in a game of Chess!!!

probably more important where you position them rather than how you rotate them

FWIW --- most electronic / software chess playing systems  (including here at chess.com) place all 4 knights facing left by default, relative to yourself, and keep them in that orientation throughout the game.