Ways to remember how the knight moves

The traditional way to remember how the knight moves, is the L shape:

A more useful way to think of it would be:

The OP is relating a beginners' lesson, concerning the "Knight's Star". I still find it useful in particularly clogged or busy positions.

A knight may move exactly 1+ square root of 2 squares in any direction that lands it exactly in the center of another square.

Try not to think about that next time you play.

Remembering that a knight always lands on a different colored square is helpful when you're trying to avoid a fork during the endgame in a blitz game. If your king is on a dark square and your queen on a light square, they cannot be forked.

A sound observation and a "trick" that I often employ, to shorten calculation.

Oh I didn't know that there was a name for it.

Yes, pieces on different colored squares cannot be forked by the knight and that is very useful.

Extra:  Two pieces cannot be forked by a knight if they are on a diagonal two squares apart:

This is very useful in the same way as the first observation.

As long as we are posting blitz aids, knight also cant fork pieces that are a knights move away from each other. I have used that before in the waning moments of a blitz game.

I think if you can quickly see the relationship (knights star), then time spent doing the..."two over, one up one up two over...now back and forth " can be spent analyzing the position. Think about how much time over the course of a game you can save by immediately seeing the Knights star instead of "searching for it"...

Its  a good post.

@naturalproduct

I agree it is a good post exactly for the reason you give.

I'm not entirely sure, where I heard the term first coined. I'm guessing that Fred Reinfeld was the originator of my first sighting. No doubt, someone knows and will correct my faulty memory, shortly.

Another way of looking at how a Knight moves that I find very interesting is, its exactly like a pawn on its 1st  move ( 2 squares instead of one ) plus a capture move. ( foot soldiers double timing it to take an objective, then actually engaging the enemy ).  

Which leads me to believe that whoever thought this game up, was well aware of this, because that is a very good representation of representing cavalry to infantry movement, and engagement in battle.  At least in ancient times. Especially in a board game.

Many historical game systems use 2 to 1 speed, or time ratio, this is assuming normal speed, cavalry can usually charge double that distance in most of the games I have played, it can vary though, anywhere between double to four times as much movement as standard foot troops.

Not to mention that foot soldiers weren't ordered to backup often (move backwards, at least not that often in ancient battles, most commanders do not like retreating lol ) , while cavalry can, and did jump obstacles, retreat, reform, and attack again, left, right, backward, or forward, and were great at attacking the enemies flanks, or even smashing a line in the center of a formation.

I learned how the Knight moves by (somewhat subconsciously) walking in that L shape whenever I walk on paved tiles, like on the street or outside my school. Really drills it in.

http://www.skoleskak.dk/spil/

Go under something which says: Slå brikker på tid (take pieces on time) and select the knight puzzle. It's a danish site whoever wondering about the ¨å¨. Do that in an hour and you will never miss a simple fork.

Do this exercise:

Put a white knight on a1 and a black queen on d5. The knight has to jump on ALL squares on the board not controlled by the queen, never touching a square controlled by the queen.

beginner: do it with the board moving the knight

intermediate: do it staring at the board but without touching the knight

advanced: do it in your mind without a board.

I'm doing this without board while I'm on the train to work, I feel it's a great way to increase your calculation power. Yes all this was taken by Danny's videos.

The knight moves in an L pattern, I think thats the best way to remember, but I heard someone say it was like a linebacker in football that goes one way then charges forward lol.

I actually don't envision the knight move as an "L" shape. I see it as one square orthogonally, plus one square diagonally.

Well that's not true now is it.

It doesn't matter, I wasn't thinking about it.

I think it's just geometric.

The knight can move to any square closest to itself that a queen cannot move to from the same square.  I'm sure the movement rules for pieces were made first as this is the essence of the game.  The names and shapes for the figures are secondary and unimportant to game play.