Terribly scared of knights..

Whenever I have option to trade bishop for knight I always do so. For me knight is the most scary chess piece ever. In the endgame if my opponent have 2 knights I almost always think I am gonna lose. Are knights really very hard to move against? They have so many possible moves and they always seem to trap one piece or another.

Please give me tips to play well against knights. Also( I know this depends on game to game) am I doing right in trading bishop for knight?

Giving your opponent the bishop pair sounds like a bad strategy.

Yeah I also think it is. That's why I am losing so many games on a streak.

For me it's a bit easier to deal with a single bishop rather than a single knight in the endgame. With the bishop it's more straight forward and you know if you're on the opposite color square you'll be safe.

Also knights are better in closed endgame positions because they can jump over the pawns. In open endgame positions the bishop is better.

Have no fear! Knights can be scary at first, but you can learn to live with them, for they have limitations just like the other pieces :)

My chess teacher said trading a knight for a bishop is bad, because you give up the bishop pair, just as you guys said. And I think that a bishop is better than a knight in an endgame, because of the long range the bishop has to get to areas quickly.

Well, knights are usually considered better in a closed endgame or if there are pawns on both sides of the board. A bishop can also only travel on half the squares.  In the middle game, a knight is usually better on the fourth rank or beyond. It all really depends on the situation, but a lot of times a bishop is better than a knight. Just don't let your opponent achieve his outposts! Also, it might help for you to see the squares the knight can move, and what that would threaten. I use to do that as a crutch. After a while, it just became second nature and I could see all their threats by just looking at them.

 If you're pressed for time and you're trying to dodge a knight, avoid moving a piece to a square the same color as the knight is sitting on because that will be the color it is attacking next, after it moves.

I learned this tip about 3 or 4 weeks ago. It has since helped me several times as I was considering candidate moves and actually helped me win a game.

Also, a good way to avoid two pieces being forked by your opponent's knight is to place them on different colored squares.

Or two same-colored squares adjacent to each other diagonally (e.g. e4 and f5) is fine.

Um, doesn't a Knight at d6 fork these two pieces?

See what knights did to me in just recently concluded match!

I was playing black.

ps. this was really a poor game by me. I lost knight and bishop for free

You have Hippophobia. Search chessopedia if you don't know that word.

Relax! It's just a horse. 

When I was first interested in chess I somehow came across the comment to a game where bishop takes knight on f3 (or f6 maybe) was played and it said "this is a good move because the knight is an important defender to the castled king."

The next week, every game I played (and I played every day) had the moves Bg4 (or Bg5) followed by bishop takes knight on f3 (or f6).  Of course I can look back on that now and have a little laugh at myself.  The correctness of the trade always depends on the specific position and instructional books have plenty of examples of how even professional players can make misjudgements.

Chess is a difficult game! ... which is probably the only rule of thumb that will apply to every game.

crownedbishop wrote:

Well, knights are usually considered better in a closed endgame or if there are pawns on both sides of the board.

I believe that in N vs B endgames bishop is usually better then knight if there are pawns on both sides of the board - long range piece can work on both kingside and queenside at same time. And vise versa, knight is a bit better then bishop in single side game because it can access both light and dark squares.

I don't really love knights too, but I have to deal with it. If you don't know how to play against knight you don't know how to play with it, so bishop for knight trade leaves you with useless piece. Just keep plaing, knights are annoying but not scary :)

thanks for all the replies. Yes I am learning to live with knights. Bishop vs Knight argument is not really satisfied but it seems most are  not in favour of bishop trade against knight.

Btw just had a cool game with knights..He/she got my rook early but couldn't capitalize.

Here is the game: I was playing black.

This tip also came in handy in the recent match.