Rooks

In this lesson we will focus primarily on the Rook.  You’ll learn where the rook is positioned, how it moves/captures other pieces, and basic rook strategy. Each player starts the game with 2 rooks, one on each corner of their side, as shown below:

Initial Setup

Rook Movement:

The rook can move in two different ways:

1. Vertically (up and down the board)
2. Horizontally (across the board)

As long the spaces the rook is moving across are unoccupied, it can move anywhere within those two rules.

 

Rook Capturing:

The rook captures the same it way it moves: either horizontally or vertically. In the picture shown above the arrows indicate where all the rook can move. The squares that the rook can move to are the same squares that the rook is attacking.

 

Rook Strategy:

Here are some tips on how to better utilize your rooks:

1. Castling: Castling is a technique that allows you to protect your King and move your rook into play. Because there are a few conditions to castling I made a separate lesson on it so feel free to check that out.
2. Keep your rooks open: If your rooks movement is restricted they prove to be fairly ineffective pieces, so when playing always remember to keep your rooks on open or half-open files. This way your rook can protect a large number of squares and remain a strong piece.
3. Doubling Up your Rooks: A rook by itself is already a pretty strong piece, so when you place two rooks next to each other they are very strong. Two rooks next to each other make for good defensive and offensive strategy.
4. Use your rook to restrict the movement of your opponents king: Because your rook can cover entire files, you can push your opponents king into a corner very easily with rooks. Here is an example:

Because the rook is covering the C-File, the king cannot move in that direction and is forced towards the corner of the board where it can be checkmated.

 

Conclusion:

There’s a basic introduction on rooks! Hopefully in this lesson you learned where rooks are positioned on the board, how they move/capture, and some tips on how to use them effectively. Thanks for reading!