The Knight's Tour:

A good way to learn the Knight and to practice looking ahead is to perform random Knight's tours.

Rules for the Knight's Tour:

An empty chess board, a Knight and 64 pennies are all you need.

Place the Knight randomly on any square to start the game. Such as in the diagram below where the Knight is on d6.

XABCDEFGHY
8-+-+-+-+(
7+-+-+-+-'
6-+-sn-+-+&
5+-+-+-+-%
4-+-+-+-+$
3+-+-+-+-#
2-+-+-+-+"
1+-+-+-+-!
xabcdefghy

Then move the Knight to any square that is an “L” shape away that the Knight can reach to begin its tour. The Knight can go to any legal square as long as it has never been there before. To prevent this from happening place a penny on the square as the Knight leaves it to go to the next square.

 

XABCDEFGHY
8-+-+-+-+(
7+-+-+-+-'
6-+-]-+-+&
5+-+-+-+-%
4-+-+n+-+$
3+-+-+-+-#
2-+-+-+-+"
1+-+-+-+-!
xabcdefghy

Here the Knight has moved to e4 and a penny was placed on d6. The Knight can never go back to d6 or any square where he has been before. The object is to fill the board with pennies with no empty squares. It is a good idea to have some one put the pennies down for you so you can concentrate on solving the tour. There is a solution for every square o the board.

XABCDEFGHY
8-+-+[+-+(
7+-]-+-]-'
6-+-]-+-+&
5+[+-+-+[%
4-+-][+-+$
3+-]-]-]-#
2-+[+n]-+"
1+-+[+-+[!
xabcdefghy

Here the Knight moved from d4 to e2. All the moves are listed below.

…d6 e4 c3 b5 c7 e8 g7 h5 g3 h1 f2 d1 e3 c2 d4 e2. The Knight can now only go to c1 f4 or g1 as all the other legal squares have pennies on them. If a Knight can't make a legal move without landing on a penny then the game is over and you must count the remaining squares to get your score. The fewer the squares remaining the better. A Knight on the last available square wins the tour.

XABCDEFGHY
8[][][][](
7][][][]['
6[][][][]&
5][][][][%
4[][][][]$
3][][][][#
2n][][][]"
1][][][][!
xabcdefghy

Here is what a successful tour would look like. A penny on every square except the one the Knight is on. After you get really good at Knight's tours try doing one blindfolded. There are many players that can do it down to just a few squares and even some who can solve it.