Knight moves in chess: the L shape, on a live board

The knight moves in an L: two squares in a straight line, then one square at a right angle. It is the only piece in chess that jumps over whatever stands in the way, which is why it can get out on move one while everything else is stuck behind the pawns. Tap the white knight on d4 below and all eight of its squares show up as dots. Every other piece is on chess pieces names and moves.

How does a knight move in chess?

Count it out from d4. Two squares up and one across gives c6 and e6. Two down and one across gives c2 and e2. Two left and one up or down gives b5 and b3. Two right gives f5 and f3. That is eight squares, and the shape is identical from every square on the board. What changes is how many of the eight are still on it.

There is no sliding. A knight does not visit the squares it passes over and it cannot stop halfway. It captures the same way it moves, by landing on an enemy piece and taking its place, and it can never land on a square one of your own pieces is already standing on.

One detail that is easy to miss: a knight always changes the colour of the square it is on. From a dark square it lands on a light one, without exception. So a knight can never attack a piece sitting on the same colour square as itself.

The knight is the only piece that jumps

Queens, rooks and bishops stop dead at the first piece in their path. Pawns are blocked by anything directly in front of them. The knight ignores all of it. Pieces in between make no difference, whoever owns them.

A knight hemmed in on all eight sides still has all eight of its normal moves, as long as the landing squares are free of its own pieces. That is what makes knights awkward in blocked positions, where the pawns are locked together and the bishops have nothing to look at.

Knights are strong in the centre and weak on the rim

A knight in the corner has two squares. On the edge of the board it has three or four. In the middle it has eight. No other piece loses that much by standing in the wrong place, which is where the old line "a knight on the rim is dim" comes from.

So the plan with a knight is nearly always the same. Get it to a square near the middle where no enemy pawn can kick it away, then leave it alone. A knight parked on a good central square can be worth more than a rook that is still asleep behind its own pawns.

The knight fork

A fork is one piece attacking two things at once. The knight is the best forking piece in chess, because its move is odd enough that it can attack a queen or a rook without that piece attacking back.

The version to watch for is the one on the board above: check plus something else. Check is never optional, so the other player has to deal with the king first, and whatever else the knight is hitting is lost next move. Knight forks are the most common way beginners drop material, in both directions.

What is a knight worth?

About three points, the same as a bishop and a third of a queen. Three pawns for a knight is a fair swap on paper.

Hold the number loosely. The corner knight above is not worth three of anything, and one parked in the middle may be worth more. As a rough guide, knights do better in closed positions full of pawns because they hop over the traffic, and bishops do better once the board opens up and the long diagonals are clear.

Chess horse moves: the piece with the horse's head

The knight is the piece carved as a horse's head, and plenty of people call it the horse. Searching for chess horse moves gets you the knight every time. In writing it is a knight, written as N, because K is already taken by the king. That is the only place the difference matters, and it is covered in chess notation.

Frequently asked questions

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