The Knight in Tic-Tac-Chec

The knight is a fearsome piece in chess, noted for his ability to create fork attacks. A fork is when a piece can attack more than one piece at a time. This makes the knight highly dangerous, especially since he can jump over any piece in his way. A knight's movement has been described in many ways, but for simplicity it can be thought of as two moves straight in any direction, followed by a side move. Often this is referred to as "one, two and over".

In Tic-Tac-Chec the knight can be used to set up the winning move; so it is often advantageous to save his placement to late in play. Try to set it up to do two or three jobs at once. Threaten the opponents line, occupy your own line, protect another piece, etc. The knight can threaten the most squares from the middle four squares (4). From a side square he can only threaten three. And from a corner he can only move to two. When possible, the middle of the board is the milieu for the knight. However, a player should be careful not to use his knight to block the movement of his own pieces.

Finally, it takes three moves to get the knight, via a vicarious route, from one square to sit on the adjacent square. Seldom should you begin by placing your knight in your own line. He should generally be made capable, though, of quickly moving into one or more spots within it.