Knight Moves – How Many Moves Does It Take?
One of the evaluations a chess player must make during a game is: “How many moves will it take to get a given knight to a particular square on the board?” Without other pieces in play and without obstacles, the diagram shows how many moves it will take to navigate a knight to a given square.
Analysis
In Figure 1., we see it takes at most 4 moves for the Knight to arrive at any given square on the board.
| Moves | Analysis |
| 4 | Worst case – It takes 4 moves to reach a square that is two diagonal squares away. That’s a lot of moves! |
| 3 | It takes 3 moves to reach squares vertically or horizontally adjacent to the square upon which the Knight starts. The Knight may potentially reach up to twenty four possible squares in three moves. |
| 2 | It takes only 2 moves to reach the squares immediately diagonal to the square where the Knight starts. The Knight may potentially reach up to twenty two possible squares in two moves. |
| 1 | By definition, the Knight moves two squares on the horizontal line and then one square vertically (up or down from that horizontal; or vice-versa, it may move two squares on the vertical line and then one square horizontally (left or right). The Knight may potentially reach up to eight possible squares in one move. |
The Knight may simultaneously attack at most 8 squares when it is within the 16 squares in the center of the board (c3 thru f6). Knights tend to have more power near the center of the board. They are normally less effective when they are close to or on the edge of the board. A Knight on square a1 can only attack or move to just 2 squares.
Exercise: With the Knight at starting position F5, move the Knight to reach every square on the board in the least number of moves.
I’m certainly not a Chess Master, but I’ve played a few masters; and I’ve also played hundreds of thousands of chess games. From those experiences, this is what I’ve learned. I have much more to write about Knights. I will revise this page with links to new articles when I publish them.
— Ed Magik
