Oh what a knight (apologies to Frankie Valli)

[steveh]

In chess, a knight moves two squares in one direction and one square in another direction, ending up on the diagonally opposite corner of a 2 x 3 grid. Intervening squared can be occupied.

Find the maximum number of knights which can be placed on an 8 x 8 chess board so that so that no knight threatens another knight (can move into a square occupied by one of the other knights).

What is the placement of the knights on the board?

[HansV]

This one is easier than it seems at first.

Spoiler

A knight always jumps from a black square to a white square or vice versa. So if you place a knight on each of the 32 black squares, none of them will threaten another one. As soon as you add a knight on a white square, it is threatened. The maximum is therefore 32.
(Alternatively, place a knight on each of the 32 white squares, of course.)

[Samantha]

This one is easier than it seems at first.

Spoiler

A knight always jumps from a black square to a white square or vice versa. So if you place a knight on each of the 32 black squares, none of them will threaten another one. As soon as you add a knight on a white square, it is threatened. The maximum is therefore 32.
(Alternatively, place a knight on each of the 32 white squares, of course.)

That's presuming you have multiple chess sets from which to pull the extra knights.

My son is starting to teach my 4 year old granddaughter to play chess, and when I pulled the old chess set out of the closet the other day, we had to resort to using a couple of checkers to replace missing pawns.

[HansV]

That's presuming you have multiple chess sets from which to pull the extra knights.

If you can use knights from a single chess set only, the answer is even easier...

[steveh]

Well done both

I can see that I will have to up my Googling for harder challenges (you did'nt think, not even for one minute that I thought of this )