OK, this is our last knight and pawn ending for a long while. You've had the experience of a few of these. Now you get to see if you're any better at it because of the practice of playing through the others. This ending is also by Rinck, who apparently liked giving his readers knightmares! Don't forget: the Black pawn is one square away from becoming a queen!

Solution:

We'll give you most of the highlights. The cooperation of the knights is great. As long as one knight gets to control the queening square, it can give itself up so the White pawn can queen and later mate. In one situation you'll see the White king come over to d2 so the knight can be protected on e2 to guard the queening square. Whoever invented the knight move with its knight fork capabilities was a genius. Let's hope you saw all the knight moves and now feel better about seeing things knights can do.

1.Nhg5+ Kg3 [1...Kg4 2.Ne5+ Kxg5 3.Nf3+; 1...Kh2 2.Nf3+ Kg3 3.N7g5] 2.Ne4+ Kg4 [2...Kh2 3.Ne5 g1N (3...g1=Q 4.Nf3+) 4.b5 Ne2+ 5.Kc4 Nf4 6.b6 Ne6 7.b7; 2...Kf4 3.Nfg5 Kg4 4.Nf2+ Kxg5 5.Nh3+ Kg4 6.Ng1 Kg3 7.Kd3 Kf2 8.Ne2 g1=Q 9.Nxg1 Kxg1 10.b5] 3.Ne5+ Kf4 4.Ng5 g1=N [4...Kxg5 5.Nf3+; 4...Kxe5 5.Nf3+; 4...g1=Q 5.Nh3+] 5.Nc6 Ne2+ 6.Kc4 Kxg5 7.b5 Ng3 8.Kd5 Nh5 9.b6 Nf6+ 10.Kd4 Nd7 11.b7 Kf5 12.Kd5 Kf6 13.Kd6 and the pawn will queen and win.

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