New answers tagged knights
0
One thing Q + B can do that Q + N cannot is to threat a remote square(s). They can also, among other things, completely control two adjacent diagonals, which is a lot of territory. I vote Q + B.
2
The problem for the knight in the endgame is that it cannot protect a pawn that is protecting it, like the bishop can. So while Knight + Queen is better than Bishop + Queen, often the fact that a number of pawns will be present can tip the balance back to the bishop. This is especially true if the player with the bishop forces an exchange of queens.
2
I feel that many people before me have already answered the question, but I just want to add another dimension to the entire scenario. If you had to choose pieces which would be the trickiest and most difficult to calculate variations for it would probably by the queen and the knight. This isn't an objective answer, but it is just a point to take into ...
-2
The bishop is in general, a weak end game piece.
In some end games the bishop is more valuable than a knight, but this is only if the bishop is your only piece that can move an arbitrary distance in a single move. That's an important end game function for being able to snatch pawns while still providing pressure from a distance.
As long as this "spooky ...
1
Knights are harder to defend by pawns. In the rare events that you are attacking an open K, Q+B is equally lethal as Q+N. However two connected pawns can hold Q+B for a few turns or until new attackers come while Q+N has a higher chance to penetrate on their own.
1
One way to look at it is this:
If you add bishops to a queen, you are adding to an ability that she already possesses, which is attacking on diagonals (which is a 45 deg attack).
Bishops practice their abilities each over its own color.
Bishops cannot protect one another directly.
If one bishop is captured, then the "union" of the bishops and queen is ...
8
A knight and queen complement each other because they each do what the other can't. The queen can move like a rook and bishop combined, but it can't move in L-shapes and jump over other pieces. The logic here is that a bishop or rook can't help the queen so much since a queen can already move like them, but the knight has something the queen doesn't.
...
3
Steve Meyer, in his book Bishop v Knight, concludes the final chapter of the book, "Capablanca's Theorem – ♕+♘ is better than ♕+♗ in the Ending", as follows:
Verdict: Capablanca's intuitive insight into the advantage of queen and knight vs queen and bishop in the ending is correct. While general positional methods of evaluation are still important, the ...
15
John Watson's "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy" contains a section titled "Folklore or Reality? Queens and Knights" John lists some folks that say Queen and Knight are better
Capablanca
Shirov
Silman
And refers to Steve Meyer's book "Bishop vs Knights" which also says the Queen + Knight is better.
I am currently playing through "Karpov move by move" ...
15
One of the ways I teach kids how knights move is to put the queen and the knight on the same square. The knight can go to the nearest squares that the queen can't go to.
It is this unique complimentary nature of the two pieces which means that they form such a potent combination. With queen plus any other piece this is missing and there is a duplication of ...
25
It is a fairly short and simple explanation:
They can combine to attack any square, not just squares on one color. As part of that they can also shift the attack better from one square to another.
0
No. If that were possible then KN could stalemate the lone King by force
(WTM 1 Nb5, 2 Na7, 3 Nc6; BTM Kb7 2 Kc6 Ka8 3 Kb5! Ka7 4 Ka5 etc.),
and I already checked (as reported in this answer)
that stalemate cannot be forced in general.
1
Unless the opponent has at least one pawn (in KNN vs K), you are not able to reach checkmate because stalemate should occur first. This is the reason that the position is a draw.
However, in KNN vs KP or KNN vs KPP, for example, there is some possibility that the pawn can take away moves from its own King. This is why the checkmate can sometimes be forced.
16
Well, simply put, they chose to follow the USCF "Article 14: The Drawn Game rule 14E: Insufficient material to win on time, 14E3: King and two knights."
While it is not a forced mate, there is a mating position that is possible, thus they could have easily followed the FIDE rule, and allowed the side with the knights to continue playing.
It was probably a ...
11
The rules applied on chess.com are explained here. Basically the rule says that if there are no pawns and the material is insufficient to force a mate on the lone king, then the game is declared a draw.
This is contrary to FIDE rules and leads to some positions that are actually winning by force being declared draws, as noted here by Nigel Short. Actually, ...
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