Chess lessons › Chess strategy
Outposts
A knight on a square no pawn can attack is hard to drive away, and worth a lot.
The idea
A knight on a square no enemy pawn can attack is hard to drive away.
- The knight sits on e5, in Black’s half, where no black pawn can attack it.
- The pawn on d4 defends it, so it is very hard to drive away.
- Black’s plan is c5, to attack the pawn behind it.
In a game: Look for a square in the enemy half that no enemy pawn can ever attack.
How the lesson begins
An outpost is a square in the enemy half of the board where your piece is defended by a pawn and no enemy pawn can come forward to attack it. A knight likes an outpost best, because pawns cannot chase it away.
White’s knight on e5 is defended by the pawn on d4, and Black has no pawn on the d-file or the f-file that could come forward to attack it. The engine rates White as better.
A question
Black’s bishop on b7 would like to remove the knight. Can it?
Show the answer
No: the knight is on a dark square and this bishop moves on light squares.
Right. The knight stands on e5, a dark square, and the bishop on b7 never leaves the light squares. It can never attack the knight.