Knight and Pawn Endings
Knight and pawn endgames feature clever maneuvering by the knights to capture opponent pawns. While a knight is poor at chasing a passed pawn, it is the ideal piece to block a passed pawn. Knights cannot lose a tempo, so knight and pawn endgames have much in common with king and pawn endgames. As a result, Mikhail Botvinnik stated that “a knight ending is really a pawn ending.” (Beliavsky & Mikhalchishin 2003:139)
An outside passed pawn can outweigh a protected passed central pawn, unlike king and pawn endgames. A knight blockading a protected passed pawn attacks the protector, while the knight blockading an outside passed pawn is somewhat out of action.
Read more about this topic: Chess Endgame, Common Types of Endgames
Famous quotes containing the words knight, pawn and/or endings:
“By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summon’d am to a tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end:
Methinks it is no journey.”
—Unknown. Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song (l. 57–60)
“In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“Logic and hope fade somewhat by thirty-six, when endings seem more like clear warnings than useful experience.”
—Jane O’Reilly, U.S. feminist and humorist. The Girl I Left Behind, ch. 2 (1980)