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I'm trying to work my way through Polgar's "5334 Chess Problems and Checkmates." I'm finding that I have difficulty finding even 2-move mates when they involve a knight (I hope none of my Queen Alice opponents are reading this). Other than continued practice, does anyone know of a good way to improve in this area? Is there some brilliant tutorial somewhere that could help me break through my blindness? Thanks.
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You want to improve without practice?
I have some implants for you ...
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If you only play chess during the day your problem with nights will be irrelavent. 
I hope to improve my tactics with
http://chesstempo.com
if you join you might be able to practice problems with knights.
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You can also consider the longest and most difficult of the basic checkmates: King Alone against King, Bishop and Knight. A good basic chess book should have a version. It is beyond my ability personally, but I've known a player who could checkmate me with that combination of pieces.
To get to mate with this setup can take over thirty moves, mind! But it is a great exercise for improving your chess, and it involves a Knight. Hence it is also a very good lesson in what you can and can not do with Knights.
If you look on the internet, this might be a good place to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_mate#King.2C_bishop_and_knight
On a side note, the ol' Wiki has plenty of material on chess worth looking at. A tremendous opening database, for one.
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By the way, there is a story about certain Japanese martial artists who do more and more difficult exercises until they reach a level of mastery. When they have completely mastered, say, karate, they revert to the first and most basic exercise (the straight punch to the ribcage) and that's all they will ever practise any more, because all of the rest of karate derives from that one punch, somehow.
Well, the basic checkmates are more or less the chess versions of that straight punch in karate: basic, neat and elementary. The game's about checkmating your opponent after all.
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