The Queen's Fan, the King's Shield, and the Knight's Wheel

This position got me thinking about something I mentioned in an earlier post about the Queen being a Rook + Bishop in one piece. In that position the Rook and Bishop proved stronger than a Queen, here She shows their combined strength with something I decided to call 'The Queen's Fan'.

Reinfeld position #699
Black to move

White has a classic weak bank rank, so my first thought was to exploit it by removing the defender of Rd1 with 1. ... f5, but unfortunately then White has a defense in 2. Qf3. So with g6 guarding h5 and the Rook blocking d1, how do we cover the 'short diagonal' e2-f3-g4? The answer is the decoy 1. ... Qe4 when the 'Rook-Queen' covers e2 and g4, and the 'Bishop-Queen' covers f3.

Queen's Fan, King's Shield

This 'three square diagonal' or 'mini-Bishop' feature of the Queen's powers struck me because it reminded me of the way Kings look like they're holding a shield as they march down the board blocking an adjacent file, most commonly recognised in the 'direct opposition' above.

Knight's Wheel

While we're on the subject, we talk about Bishops and their diagonals, Rooks and their ranks and files, but when we talk about Knights we usually do so in terms of 'squares'. Rank, files, and diagonals are all groups of squares, and I've always thought we should see Knights in the way they control groups of squares, rather than just single points of interest. Above is a 'Knight's Wheel', something we will no doubt return to should I ever progress from tactics to a study of the positional elements of the game.