Rook (chess)

File:Chess piece - White rook.JPG

White rook

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Black rook

The rook (/rʊk/; ♖, ♜) is a piece in the game of chess. It may move any number of squares horizontally or vertically without jumping, and it may Template:Chessgloss an enemy piece on its path; it may participate in castling. Each player starts the game with two rooks, one in each corner on their side of the board.

Formerly, the rook (from Template:Langx) was alternatively called the tower, marquess, rector, and comes (count or earl). The term "castle" is considered to be informal or old-fashioned.Template:AN chess

Placement and movement

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Starting positions of the rooks

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8	File:Chessboard480.svg d8 white circle d7 white circle e7 white pawn g7 black rook d6 white circle d5 white circle Error creating thumbnail: a4 white circle b4 white circle c4 white circle d4 white rook e4 white circle f4 white circle g4 white circle h4 white circle d3 white circle d2 white circle d1 white circle								8
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The white rook can move to any square marked with a white dot. The black rook can move to squares with black dots, or it can capture the pawn on e7.

The white rooks start on the squares a1 and h1, while the black rooks start on a8 and h8. The rook moves horizontally or vertically, through any number of unoccupied squares. The rook cannot jump over pieces. The rook may capture an enemy piece by moving to the square on which the enemy piece stands, removing it from play. The rook also participates with the king in a special move called castling, wherein it is transferred to the square crossed by the king after the king is shifted two squares toward the rook.

Strategy

Relative value

The rook is worth about five pawns. In general, rooks are stronger than bishops or knights and are considered greater in value than either of those pieces by nearly two pawns, but less valuable than two minor pieces by approximately a pawn. Two rooks are generally considered to be worth slightly more than a queen (see chess piece relative value). Winning a rook for a bishop or knight is referred to as winning the exchange. Rooks and queens are called major pieces or heavy pieces, as opposed to bishops and knights, the minor pieces.

Development

In the opening, the rooks are blocked in by other pieces and cannot immediately participate in the game, so it is usually desirable to connect one's rooks on the Template:Chessgloss by castling and then clearing all pieces except the king and rooks from the first rank. In that position, the rooks support each other and can more easily move to occupy and control the most favorable Template:Chessgloss.

A common strategic goal is to Template:Chessgloss a rook on the first rank of an open file (i.e., one unobstructed by pawns of either player) or a half-open file (i.e., one unobstructed by friendly pawns). From this position, the rook is relatively unexposed to risk but can exert control on every square on the file. If one file is particularly important, a player might advance one rook on it, then position the other rook behind—doubling the rooks. Having both rooks on the same file is known as a battery and can be very deadly, especially if the queen joins in as well (see Alekhine's Gun).

A rook on the seventh rank (the opponent's second rank) is typically very powerful, as it threatens the opponent's unadvanced pawns and hems in the enemy king. A rook on the seventh rank is often considered sufficient compensation for a pawn. In the diagrammed position from a game between Lev Polugaevsky and Larry Evans, the rook on the seventh rank enables White to draw, despite being a pawn down.

Two rooks on the seventh rank are often enough to force victory by the blind swine mate, or at least a draw by perpetual check.

A white rook on the 7th rank

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8	File:Chessboard480.svg Error creating thumbnail: Error creating thumbnail: d7 white rook Error creating thumbnail: Error creating thumbnail: Error creating thumbnail: a5 white pawn Error creating thumbnail: b4 black rook e3 white pawn Error creating thumbnail: g2 white pawn h2 white pawn								8
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White to move, draws.

Polugaevsky vs. Evans, 1970

Connected black rooks on the 7th rank

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8	File:Chessboard480.svg Error creating thumbnail: Error creating thumbnail: e7 white rook Error creating thumbnail: e6 white knight Error creating thumbnail: g6 black bishop d5 white pawn Error creating thumbnail: b4 white bishop Error creating thumbnail: a2 white pawn b2 white pawn d2 black rook e2 black rook h2 white pawn f1 white rook Error creating thumbnail:								8
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Black to move, 32...Rxh2+ and White resigns, seeing that 33.Kg1 Rdg2Template:ChessAN.

Chigorin vs. Steinitz, Havana 1892

Endgame

Rooks are most powerful towards the end of a game (i.e., the endgame), when they can move unobstructed by pawns and control large numbers of squares. They have trouble restraining enemy pawns from advancing towards promotion unless they occupy the file behind them. In addition to this, a rook best supports a friendly pawn towards promotion from behind it on the same file (see Tarrasch rule).

In a position with a rook and one or two Template:Chessgloss versus two rooks, generally in addition to pawns, and possibly other pieces, Lev Alburt advises that the player with the single rook should avoid exchanging the rook for one of his opponent's rooks.

The rook is adept at delivering checkmate. Below are a few examples of rook checkmates that are easy to Template:Cgloss. A single rook can force checkmate while a single minor piece cannot.

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A king and rook mate. The king and rook work together to force the enemy king to the edge of the board, where it can be checkmated.

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8	File:Chessboard480.svg Error creating thumbnail: Error creating thumbnail: Error creating thumbnail: Error creating thumbnail: g5 white rook f2 white pawn g2 white pawn h2 white pawn b1 black rook Error creating thumbnail:								8
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A back rank checkmate

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8	File:Chessboard480.svg b8 white rook Error creating thumbnail: d7 white rook Error creating thumbnail:								8
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A two-rook checkmate or the "ladder checkmate"

History

Further information: History of chess

In the medieval shatranj, the rook symbolized a chariot. The Persian word rukh means "chariot", as does the name of the corresponding piece in the original Indian version, chaturanga, ratha. In modern times, it is mostly known as हाथी (elephant) to Hindi-speaking players, while East Asian chess games such as xiangqi and shogi have names also meaning chariot (車) for the same piece.

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Antique Indian Mughal chess elephant made from sandalwood representing the rook

File:Grose-Francis-Pavisors-and-Moveable-Tower-Assaulting-Castle-1812.jpg

19th-century illustration of a siege tower, which the rook may be intended to represent

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The berserker used as a rook in the Lewis chessmen

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Game of human chess in St Petersburg, 1924. The rook is represented by a cannon, as many Eastern European languages call it by that name.

Persian war chariots were heavily armored, carrying a driver and at least one ranged-weapon bearer, such as an archer. The sides of the chariot were built to resemble fortified stone work, giving the impression of small, mobile buildings, causing terror on the battlefield.

In Europe, the castle or tower appears for the first time in the 16th century in Vida's 1550 Ludus Scacchia, and then as a tower on the back of an elephant. In time, the elephant disappeared and only the tower was used as the piece.

In the West, the rook is almost universally represented as a crenellated turret. The piece is called torre ("tower") in Italian, Portuguese, Catalan and Spanish; tour in French; toren in Dutch; Turm in German; torn in Swedish; and torni in Finnish. In Hungarian, it is bástya ("bastion") and in Hebrew, it is called צריח (Template:Transliteration, meaning "turret"). In the British Museum's collection of the medieval Lewis chess pieces, the rooks appear as stern warders, or wild-eyed berserker warriors.

Rooks are usually similar in appearance to small castles; thus, a rook is sometimes called a "castle", though modern chess literature rarely, if ever, uses this term.

In some languages, the rook is called a ship: Thai เรือ (Template:Transliteration), Armenian Նավակ (Template:Transliteration), Russian ладья (Template:Transliteration), Javanese ꦥꦿꦲꦸ (Template:Transliteration). This may be because of the use of an Arabic style V-shaped rook piece, which some may have mistaken for a ship. It is possible that the rendition comes from Sanskrit Template:Transliteration (ship); however, no chaturanga pieces were ever called a Template:Transliteration. Murray argued that the Javanese could not visualize a chariot moving through the jungles in sweeping fashion as the rook. The only vehicle that moved in straight fashion was a ship, thus they replaced it with prahu. Murray, however, did not give an explanation why the Russians call the piece a "ship".

Peter Tyson suggests that there is a correlation between the name of the piece and the word rukh, a mythical giant bird of prey from Persian mythology.

In South Slavic languages, it is called the "cannon" (Template:Langx).

In Kannada, it is known as ಆನೆ (āāne), meaning "elephant". This is unusual, as the term for elephant is in many other languages applied to the bishop.

Heraldry

File:Arms of the Rookwood family of Stanningfield.png

Arms of the English family of Rookwood, featuring chess rooks as a cant on the name

Chess rooks frequently occur as heraldic charges. Heraldic rooks are usually shown as they looked in medieval chess sets, with the usual battlements replaced by two outward-curving horns. They occur in arms from around the 13th century onwards.

In Canadian heraldry, the chess rook is the cadency mark of a fifth daughter.

Unicode

See also: Chess symbols in Unicode

Unicode defines three codepoints for a rook:

♖ U+2656 White Chess Rook

♜ U+265C Black Chess Rook

🨂 U+1FA02 Neutral Chess Rook

See also

• Lucena position – winning position
• Philidor position – drawing position
• Rook and pawn versus rook endgame
• Tarrasch rule – rooks belong behind passed pawns

References

• Alburt, Lev (December 2009), "Back to Basics", Chess Life, 2009 (12): 44–45
• Davidson, Henry A. (1949). A Short History of Chess. Crown. ISBN 978-0-307-82829-3.Template:PD-notice
• Fine, Reuben; Benko, Pal (2003), Basic Chess Endings (1941) (2nd ed.), McKay, ISBN 0-8129-3493-8
• Griffiths, Peter (1992), Exploring the Endgame, American Chess Promotions, ISBN 0-939298-83-X
• Hooper, David; Whyld, Kenneth (1996) [First pub. 1992], "rook", The Oxford Companion to Chess (2nd ed.), Oxford University Press, pp. 343–44, ISBN 0-19-280049-3
• Horton, Byrne J. (1959), Dictionary of modern chess, New York: Philosophical Library, p. 175, ISBN 0-8065-0173-1, OCLC 606992
• Sunnucks, Anne (1970), "rook, the", The Encyclopaedia of Chess, St. Martins Press, ISBN 978-0-7091-4697-1

Further reading

• Barden, Leonard (1980), Play Better Chess with Leonard Barden, Octopus Books Limited, p. 10, ISBN 0-7064-0967-1
• Brace, Edward R. (1977), "rook", An Illustrated Dictionary of Chess, Hamlyn Publishing Group, pp. 241–42, ISBN 1-55521-394-4
• Davidson, Henry (1981) [1949], A Short History of Chess (1981 paperback), McKay, ISBN 0-679-14550-8
• Lasker, Emanuel (1947), Lasker's Manual of Chess, David McKay Company, p. 8, ISBN 0-486-20640-8, OCLC 3636924
• Pandolfini, Bruce (1986), Let's Play Chess, Fireside, ISBN 0-671-61983-7

External links

• Piececlopedia: Rook by Fergus Duniho and Hans Bodlaender, The Chess Variant Pages