Tip: Exploiting Your Knight in the Endgame 1 of 3

Knight endgames are like king and pawn endgames. This rule of thumb was given by former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik, who observed that if a king and pawn endgame was winning, the evaluation would be the same with knights on the board. We can infer that protected or outside passed pawns can be a huge asset in knight endgames, because the stronger side can always offer to trade knights, and the defending side will need to retreat in order to avoid the trade.

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[Event "rated untimed match"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1900.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Marshall"]
[Black "Burn"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Annotator "David Hayes"]
[BlackElo "0"]
[FEN "r3r1k1/pbpn2b1/1p3qQ1/3p2N1/3P4/2N1P3/PP3PP1/R3K2R w KQ - 0 1"]
[SetUp "1"]
[TimeControl "0"]
[WhiteElo "0"]

1. Rh8+ Kxh8 2. Qh7# 1-0