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In one of my earlier videos, I spoke about how knights can be tricky and trappy. In this game I played today, I matched against an opponent where we both played well and the game was balanced all the way into the endgame. We each had a knight, a rook, and the same number of pawns in a mostly symmetrical structure. To break the jam, I made five consecutive knight moves, the first of which Stockfish considered a straight out mistake, and the second suboptimal. However, this series of moves clinched the victory.

Knights can be particularly strong in the endgame when there are still a lot of pawns on the board. Their weakness compared to bishops is that they can’t travel quickly across the board and so their presence isn’t felt when they are far away. However, their strength is that they can go to every square on the board, and their L-shaped moves can be difficult to see into the future after several moves. In the endgame, my opponent was forced to react to the aggressive moves by my knight, and inaccurate play resulted in a fork of two pawns, and then the fatal fork between their rook and king.

I hope you enjoyed this video, and thanks for watching!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/33106142189

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2021.12.12"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "foil1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C28"]
[WhiteElo "1138"]
[BlackElo "1173"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "20:18:09 PST"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 exf4 4. e5 Ng8 5. Nf3 Ne7 6. d4 d5 7. exd6 Qxd6 8. Ne4 Qd8 9. Bxf4 Nd5 10. Qd2 Nxf4 11. Qxf4 Bd6 12. Ne5 O-O 13. Nxd6 Qxd6 14. O-O-O Nd7 15. Bc4 Nf6 16. Rhf1 Be6 17. Bxe6 fxe6 18. Nc4 Qxf4+ 19. Rxf4 Nd5 20. Re4 Rae8 21. Rde1 Rf2 22. R4e2 Rxe2 23. Rxe2 Rf8 24. Kd2 Rf6 25. g3 h5 26. Ne5 Kh7 27. Nd7 Rf7 28. Nc5 b6 29. Nxe6 c5 30. Ng5+ 1-0