How the Knight Moves: The L-Shape
The knight's movement is unlike any other piece on the board. It travels exactly two squares in one direction — horizontal or vertical — and then one square perpendicular to that. The result is an L-shaped path. Because the knight always covers one combination of two-and-one squares, it can reach up to eight different destination squares from any central position.
A knight on e4, for example, can move to d2, f2, c3, g3, c5, g5, d6, or f6. From the edge of the board its options shrink considerably, which is the origin of one of chess's most enduring pieces of advice: "a knight on the rim is dim." A knight placed on a1 controls only two squares; the same piece on d4 controls eight. Centralisation is not merely good practice for the knight — it is essential.
Unlike every other piece in chess, the knight does not travel in a straight line. It cannot be blocked by pieces standing between its starting square and its destination. This is what gives the knight its defining ability: the jump.
The Knight's Unique Power: Jumping Over Pieces
The knight is the only piece in chess that can jump over other pieces, whether friendly or enemy. All other pieces — the bishop, rook, queen, and king — are obstructed by any piece standing in their path. The knight simply vaults over them, landing cleanly on its destination square.
This makes the knight exceptionally powerful in the opening and early middlegame, when the board is crowded. While bishops and rooks sit idle behind walls of pawns, the knight can develop immediately. It is no coincidence that 1.Nf3 and 1.Nc3 are among the most common opening moves — the knight reaches its ideal square before the position opens up to accommodate the long-range pieces.
The jumping ability also gives the knight a unique attacking character. It can threaten pieces that have no way to threaten it back, and it can infiltrate positions where no other piece could travel. A deeply centralised knight — especially one supported by a pawn and out of reach of enemy pawns — is one of the most powerful structures in all of chess.
The Knight's Value: Three Pawns
Chess teachers traditionally assign the knight a value of three pawns, the same as a bishop. In practice, the two pieces have very different strengths depending on the position. A knight and a bishop are considered roughly equivalent in material terms, but experienced players know the real comparison is more nuanced.
Knights are finite-range pieces: even a perfectly centralised knight controls only eight squares. A bishop on an open diagonal can exert pressure across the entire board. In open positions with long diagonals and few pawn chains, the bishop often outperforms the knight. In closed positions — where pawn chains restrict long-range movement and fixed pawn islands create permanent outpost squares — the knight's ability to jump freely can make it the superior piece.
The Colour-Changing Piece
One of the knight's most instructive properties is that it always changes colour with each move. A knight on a light square will land on a dark square, and vice versa, every single time it moves. This is a mathematical consequence of the L-shape: moving two squares in one direction and one in the other always crosses an odd number of squares in total, guaranteeing a colour change.
This has a practical implication: a knight requires exactly two moves to return to its original square (or any square of the same colour). It can never directly attack a piece that stands on the same colour square as itself in a single move. Knowing this geometry helps both attackers and defenders calculate knight manoeuvres with precision.
Outposts: The Knight's Strategic Home
A knight placed in an advanced position that enemy pawns cannot attack is called an outpost. Outposts are the knight's natural strategic goal. A knight on d5 or e5, protected by a pawn and surrounded by enemy pawns that cannot reach it, becomes a permanent fixture in the enemy camp — a piece the opponent must either dislodge with a minor piece or tolerate indefinitely.
Creating outposts is a long-term strategic operation. It typically involves exchanging the pawn that could attack the target square (often an exchange of pawns on an open or half-open file), then manoeuvring the knight into position. Grandmasters study the creation and exploitation of knight outposts as a distinct strategic theme, and it appears repeatedly in classical games and modern theory alike.
Knight Forks: The Tactical Weapon
The knight fork is one of the most feared tactical motifs in chess. A fork occurs when a single piece attacks two or more enemy pieces simultaneously, forcing the opponent to lose material since only one piece can be saved.
The knight is an especially dangerous forking piece because its unusual movement pattern makes forks difficult to spot in advance. A knight that appears unthreatening on one square can, in a single move, simultaneously attack the king, queen, and a rook — a royal fork. Even experienced players overlook knight forks, and the combination of the king, queen, and rook being vulnerable to a single knight on one square (most famously f7 or f2) is a recurring tactical theme from the opening through to the endgame.
Learning to spot knight fork patterns — both to create them and to prevent them — is one of the most productive investments a developing chess player can make.
Knights vs Bishops
The question of knight versus bishop is one of the enduring strategic debates in chess. As a general rule, knights excel in closed positions with locked pawn structures, while bishops are stronger in open positions where long diagonals are available. A knight that has reached a permanent outpost in a blocked position is often stronger than a bishop. A bishop facing a pawn on its own colour in an open endgame will frequently outperform a knight struggling to keep pace across the board.
Practical players learn to identify which piece type suits the specific structure on the board, and many endgame studies hinge precisely on whether the side with the knight or the side with the bishop holds the advantage. This is why trading your bishop for the opponent's knight — or the reverse — is a strategic decision with long-term consequences, not merely a material exchange.
The Knight's Tour
The knight's tour is a mathematical puzzle that has fascinated chess players and mathematicians for centuries. The challenge: starting from any square on the board, can a knight visit every one of the 64 squares exactly once? The answer is yes. In fact, there are over 26 trillion distinct knight's tours on the standard 8x8 board.
The puzzle dates back at least to the ninth century and has been studied by Euler, who found a symmetric closed tour (one where the knight ends on a square a single knight's move from its starting point). The knight's tour is today studied in graph theory, computer science, and recreational mathematics — a testament to the enduring fascination of chess's most unusual piece.
Jaques of London — Making Chess Sets Since 1849
The Staunton knight designed by Jaques of London in 1849 is widely regarded as the most beautiful piece in the history of chess. Its design was inspired by the horse heads from the Elgin Marbles — the marble sculptures from the Parthenon frieze, now held in the British Museum in London. Nathaniel Cook's original design, manufactured by Jaques, gave the knight a sculptural gravitas that purely functional designs had never achieved. The direct connection to classical antiquity, visible in the arched neck and expressive head of the horse, set the Staunton knight apart from every predecessor. Today, Jaques of London continues to produce Staunton chess sets to the original specification, and the knight remains the piece most closely associated with the set's heritage and aesthetic identity.
Shop Staunton Chess Sets →Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How does the knight move in chess?
The knight moves in an L-shape: two squares in one direction (horizontally or vertically) and then one square perpendicular to that direction. The move can be made in any combination — two forward and one left, two left and one back, and so on — giving the knight up to eight possible destination squares from a central position on the board. The knight always lands on a square of the opposite colour to the one it started on.
Q: Can the knight jump over other pieces?
Yes. The knight is the only piece in chess that can jump over other pieces. All other pieces — bishops, rooks, queens, and kings — are blocked by any piece standing between them and their target square. The knight ignores all intervening pieces entirely, landing on its destination square regardless of what is in the way. This makes the knight particularly valuable in the crowded early stages of a game, when it can develop while other pieces remain blocked by pawns.
Q: What is the Staunton knight modelled on?
The Staunton knight, as created by Jaques of London and manufactured by Jaques of London in 1849, was modelled on the horse heads from the Elgin Marbles — the ancient Greek marble sculptures taken from the Parthenon frieze in Athens, now housed in the British Museum in London. The design captures the arched neck, flared nostrils, and expressive head of the classical horse, giving the Staunton knight a sculptural quality that has made it widely regarded as the most beautiful piece in chess history. Jaques of London has been producing this design continuously since 1849.
Q: What is a knight fork in chess?
A knight fork occurs when a knight moves to a square from which it simultaneously attacks two or more enemy pieces. Because the opponent can only move one piece per turn, they must allow the other piece (or pieces) to be captured, resulting in a material gain for the attacker. The knight is particularly effective at forking because its unusual L-shaped movement makes forks hard to anticipate. The most devastating version is the royal fork, where the knight simultaneously attacks the king and queen, forcing the king to move and surrendering the queen.