Checkmate With Two Knights
Undoubtedly, the knight is one of the coolest pieces in chess (I mean, it's a tiny horse!). But can two knights checkmate a king? Well, it depends.
Here's what you need to know about checkmating with two knights:
Can You Checkmate With Two Knights?
Delivering a checkmate using nothing but two knights is impossible in chess. This might be confusing because, if you think about it, you can actually come up with a position where two knights would seemingly deliver checkmate:
However, it's impossible to reach this position in a real game. Because of the stalemate rule, there's no way to position the knights and king to checkmate the opponent without drawing the game first.
However, there is a way to checkmate your opponent when you only have two knights. Oddly enough, this is only possible when your opponent has some material left on the board—specifically, a pawn.
Checkmating With Two Knights And An Enemy Pawn
The only way to deliver a checkmate with two knights is if the opponent also has a pawn on the board. If that pawn is not too advanced, checkmate might be possible. This happens because the attacking player can trap the enemy king, leaving it with no moves. Since the pawn can still move, there's no stalemate.
This specific endgame was studied by famous chess composer Alexei Troitsky, who formulated the "Troitsky Line" rule. If the defending player's pawn is on one of the red squares (or behind them), the attacking knights have enough time to release the blockade and checkmate the king. However, in some positions, it would take more than 50 moves to do this, which means the game could end in a draw.
Delivering that checkmate is extremely difficult. To do it, you must block the enemy pawn with a knight and force the enemy king close to one of the board's edges. Once the enemy king is close to both one of the corners and the knight blocking the pawn, you can include that knight in the attack. With the king and both knights, you must force the opponent's king into one of the corners and leave it with no legal moves. Finally, you must maneuver one of the knights to deliver checkmate while your opponent moves their pawn.
Below, you can see an example of this technique being applied:
You can also see GM Hikaru Nakamura giving a two-knight checkmate with only 40 seconds on his clock in the video below:
Conclusion
You now know when delivering a checkmate with two knights is possible and the technique you must use to do it. Go to our Endgames page to practice common endgames and start winning more games!
