Dacha Color Harmony and the "Sleeping Knight"

Hello everyone and welcome to the YaacAttack Academy! We've been enjoying putting out unique content talking about the harmony of light and dark, which I like to call "dacha" (literally summer home -- building a beautiful home on the board!).

For the better part of 20 years, I've focused on this color harmony approach and use it to develop a deep understanding of the underbelly of chess positions. The premise is that we want to have a balance of light and dark. Each piece and pawn has its role in helping this harmony. For example, the bishop pair is important because it gives us harmony. What if we lose a dark bishop? Well, we can put pawns on that color - commonly known as pawn chains but actually they are miniature dark bishops. Knights can be color pieces too, with specific color values, as shown in the tactic, below.

The problem:

I'd like to share a tactic from a game I had here on chess.com which is very color oriented.

This started from a Budapest gambit and a strange position has arisen. We have a beautiful knight on the 6th rank which is known to be very powerful. One of my favorite quotes is: "If you have a knight on the 6th rank you can go to sleep and the game will win itself!"

So this "Sleeping knight" is sadly getting woken by the white king. Hmm - what to do? Well, I like to begin all positions with a color discussion. Which color are we stronger on, which weaker?

Both sides have the same pieces so there is no imbalance. As such, there is no color imbalance either. But! We only have a light bishop, no dark. Soooo....harmony is not here yet. Dark is needed! We would love to get our dark bishop back from the piece bin but unless this is Bughouse, this is just about impossible. Another way is through pawns! Or putting the queen on dark! Well, there is no queen. Hm. How about our knight? It could help control dark -- and if we imagine a dark square we'd love to reach what would we pick? Think for a moment...

That magic square will be f2! Trapping the rook on h1. It's probably the only square better than the one it is on now. So how to get there? And control dark? If Nc2 check, simply Kc3 and the knight has no rest....

The solution?

Nd1!! Controlling dark, Octopus Dacha! B2, f2, e3, and c3 are all under the Knight's horizon. If Rook captures then we play Rd8 and win the white rook.

The game went in surprising fashion and the Dark Knight hit very very hard. E4 Rd8 check Ke5 Nf2 Bg2 and now --not Knight takes rook, but rather the way more vicious Nd3 fork, but also wait -- its mate!! And symbolic -- Dark. Absolutely not a coincidence, but rather our yearning for dark harmony has paid off and we have reaped the rewards.

You are most welcome to enjoy the video discussion of this tactic and many more on our youtube channel and YAACATTACK Academy! Let us know what kind of future tactics you'd like to see. We intend to pick our weekly favorites to show you here. Thanks and happy "Dacha"-ing!!