How Does the Chess Knight Capture?

King, Queen, Bishop,
Rook, Pawn

The Knight, in Chess, captures in exactly the same way he moves. Remember a Knight Chess Piece moves 3 squares on each of his moves. He either moves 2 squares up or down and 1 square to the right or left, or he moves 2 squares to the right or left and then moves 1 square up or down. 

How a Knight Captures

This diagram shows how he can move and capture and who he can capture. In this instance, he can capture any of the 3 pawns pictured.

Here is the white Knight and 3 black pawns. Which one will be to his advantage to capture will depend on the set up of all the rest of the chess pieces. Of course this will probably not ever happen in a real game, but for teaching purposes we can see that if any opposing chess piece is in any square that the Knight can reach he will capture them, take them out of the game, and replace himself on the square that the opposing chess piece had been on. 

The Knight can do something that no other chess piece can do. He can jump over friendly or hostile chess pieces located on the path he needs to take.

He cannot capture any piece that he jumps over, he has to land on the square that the hostile chess piece is on in order to capture it.

Of course, a Knight would not take his own teammate out by landing on his own friendly chess piece. A friendly chess piece is any white chess piece, if he is white or any black chess piece if he is black.

The landing square is also called the end-square. So to repeat, the Knight can only capture opposing or hostile chess pieces that are on his end-square, or the square he ends up on after he moves. 

If the Knights end-piece is a friendly chess piece, he cannot move to that square. 

Remember that in the initial chess board set up the Knights are placed between the Rooks and the Bishops. For a diagram see Chess in 30 Minutes.

Think about the ways that a Knight can work to win the game. Why is he so important? Why does he need to be protected and how can he best protect the King? Getting answers to these questions are your way of developing your unique chess strategies and winning game moves.

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