Anybody Can Play Chess Minor Pieces

Anybody can Play Chess
Minor Pieces
We have already discussed about the topics of placing and setting Chess
Board and Pieces, moves of Kings and Pawns and moves of major pieces,
i.e. Queens and Rooks. Now let us learn about Minor pieces – Knights
and Bishops.
Each player will have two Bishops and two Knights in the initial set up
of the Board.
Moves of Bishop
The Bishop is the "second half" of the Queen because it walks
diagonally. Bishops don’t want straight. He walks on any number of
squares, but only diagonally. It can go forward or backward on those
diagonal lines to any direction. It can’t jump over other chessmen.
In the initial position, you have two Bishops – a white-square Bishop and
a black-square Bishop, and as you can see, during the game, the white-
Bishop always walks only on the white squares, and the black-Bishop
always walks only on Black squares. Bishops work well in pairs, as one
of them covers fields that are inaccessible to another and both Bishops
cover the 64 squares together.
We learned that the Bishop which stands on a light square at the
beginning of the game can never move to a dark square, and similarly,
the Bishop on a dark square at the start of the game can never move to
a light square.
The number of squares that bishop can go to depends on where it
stands. If the bishop is on a central square, it will have a choice of up to
13 squares. If it is in the corner, it can move to at most 7 squares.
The bishop can capture any of the opponent’s men, except the King that
stands in its way. The captured man is removed from the board and the
bishop takes its place.
Knight’s move
Knights are men on horses and the chess piece derives its name from
this. Knight is the only piece which can jump over other pieces and
pawns. The move of a Knight is very different from the other pieces. The
Knight moves in two stages.
The diagram shows how the Knight jumps over the d5-square to c6 or
c4; over the e6 square to d7 or f7; over the f5 square to g6 or g4, and
over e4 to d3 or f3. It may be said that the Knight moves one square
vertically or horizontally and one more square along the diagonal. The
Knight always moves from a white square to a black square, or vice
versa. It is the only piece that can leap over its own or opposing
chessmen, which remain in their places.
If it is placed in a centre square – e5, which is a black square, White's
Knight can move to any of the eight white squares marked by arrows.
The Knight moves from the square on which it stands over a neighboring
square on the file or rank onto a square that is opposite in colour to its
current standing position.
Though White's Knight is surrounded on all sides by his own and black
pieces and Pawns, this does not prevent the Knight from reaching any of
the marked squares.
The other-way to describe about the move of Knight jump is that it
initially moves two squares either horizontally - left or right of the
sitting square or vertically -up or down, and then one more square
sideways. It’s slightly confusing to put it in words, but the pattern of its
move is easy to understand on the board.
Take care that a Knight changes the colour of its square every time it
moves. Otherwise, the Knight always jumps from a light square to a dark
square or vice versa.
A Knight which is in the corner can move two squares, a Knight which is
on an edge of the board can move four squares, but a Knight in one of
the centre squares can move to eight squares, to one square at a time.
The Knight can capture any of the opponent’s chessmen, except the king
that stands on the square to which the Knight moves. The captured
chessman is removed from the board and the Knight takes its place.
Knight is an effective piece for tactics known as forking. The reason is
that Knight can attack in eight directions simultaneously and therefore
have better chances of catching enemy pieces in a fork. Knight fork is
relatively hard to spot in advance because of its crooked mode of action.
A Knight’s strength is approximately equal to that of a Bishop. A Knight
is stronger than a pawn, but weaker than a Rook or a Queen.
We have learned moves of all the pieces and Pawns. In the next article
we will learn about certain typical Rules like, check, checkmate, castling
etc. And then we will start playing a game of Chess. Read my next article
here in the series –Anybody can Play Chess.
Keep visiting these pages regularly and keep updating your chess
wisdom. If you need any specific help to learn chess, please write back
to me on the comments; I am always here to help you.

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