How To Deal With Pins On Your Knights

Practical advice on what to do when your knight gets pinned by a bishop.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
1:09 - 4 Basic Options
7:12 - Other Cases
18:29 - Outro

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[krishradio]

Thank you for this critical strategic lesson on one of the most practical positions faced by beginners/intermediate players. I think watching this video multiple times and then internalising it will help us play with more confidence.

[andreluveltia]

During 06:03, you can counter attack by attacking the bishop with a pawn, with a risk of.. the enemy pawn capturing pawns to the kingside.

[puzzLEGO]

a lot of people think the worst of it, but sometimes having doubled pawns is worth the lack of struggle trying to defend it

[ВалерийФлоров-лм]

Your lessons could be used not only to learn how to play chess, but also they give ability to study English listening. Especially for foreign people whose mother language is not English. Very nice. Thank you!

[zBrain]

I picked up at least three useful tactics. As usual you picked a great topic. This one is especially funny for me though because I have a friend that always plays the philidor defense... I guarantee I will get a checkmate out of those two knights at some point in the near future

[oyebolaopeyemi]

At 11:30, I think you have the option of Nxe5, if Bxd1, then Bxf7 is mate.

If after Nxe5, dxe5, then you can just take the Bishop with the queen.

If after Nxe5, d5 I think you can just do Bxd5 then if Nxd5, you can take the Bishop and continue from there

[lucasbortoluzzi]

6:25 actually you can attack the bishop with h3 and g4 and then move your knight

[NidusFormicarum]

Two other common approaches is 1. Playing Qb3 to attack the b7 pawn - especially when the knight is still on b8. This is often a good option when your opponent's bg4 or his/her follow-up turns out to be a mistake. This might compromise your pawn structure, but if you win a pawn and gain the bishop pair in the process this is often bad news for the second player.

2. Putting a knight between your pinned piece and your queen (or rook). This is actually a theoretical move in some openings. Now your knight is heading for another square and you have dealt with an annoying pin. Capturing your knight and giving you doubled pawns is not always a good option for your opponent, since they will have to part with the bishop pair and giving you a file to work with. If they don't capture it your previously pinned knight is now free to move to a better square (even if that results in a new pin).

[chesspuzzles]

Ome reason I really like your videos Is that technically after the first half of the video, I would know my options, but after you show positions and I can try to figure out which is best. You also teach things you wouldn't expect to learn, like when he said attack in the direction of your pawns. I had never heard that before, so that really helps

[Kirito_wr]

6:12 u dont actually lose the knight because u can just play h3 g4 and then move the knight

[karlbe]

Nelson, I think you are the best chess explainer on youtube! Like that checkmate trap and hope to one day use it.

[kidthebilly]

i see these in the majority of my games as i play a pretty baseline opening
i've watched like 15 of your videos and they've all helped me tremendously

[AaronSmith-sxez]

A key consideration is if the enemy is fianchettoing their non-pinning bishop. If so, it is often easy kick the pinning bishop back with A3 or H3 because, the bishop will be trapped by their own pawn if they try to retreat. The other consideration is with h3/a3 pawn pushes, a good player can and will sack two pawns for a minor piece to open up your position and unleash an often devastating attack.

[aru]

Hi Nelson. I love the video, it's a great summary for beginners who just don't know what they can do in general. However, for rating 1k+, I'd like to know specific reasonings for which option to choose and when. For example in what kinds of positions should you do x, y, or z, and why you'd want to choose one over another (forcing a certain exchange/transforming the pawn structure/creating imbalances/etc) I know a lot of it is part of opening theory but I feel like knowing these things will really help for example picking which variation to play depending on your goal and when you deviate from theory.

[darrylkassle]

Great video - very very apt considering it happens almost every game. Also could you possibly do this as a theme in general in terms of common tactics/ moves/ ideas that happen often and how to deal with them. For example I have trouble knowing when to keep the centre open or locked or when to break into the middle even what side to castle on at times when it is not glaringly obvious. This is why your channel has done so well because of content like that.

[ligth]

5:30 If you do Knight e5, and opponent takes queen, you can checkmate with bishop.

[prakasavigraha]

This is quite instructive and all made a lot of sense. Thank you for being so generous to share your experience Nelson.

[nonemo]

Thanks, I figured most of this stuff out myself but I'll definitely try and see if I can incorporate that Philidor defense trap in my games. I'm starting to appreciate how important the F file is for tactics such as this.

[wigner]

a neat corollary trick here with the first example, is that once you've protected the queen with the bishop block and the knight is no longer pinned, you can attack with that previously pinned knight and possibly pick up an unguarded bishop

[Trikedin]

My question is, how you can detect and work with pawn weaknisses. I know than doubler pawns, isolated pawns backwards pawns are usually weak but especially to detect them in a casual situation and work with them is a huge problem for me