Rook (chess)

The tower (Unicode: ♖ ♜ ) is the second most powerful piece in chess. Together with the lady he is one of the major pieces. A distinction is made in the normal position and in the opening between women's Rook and King Storm. The former is posted on the queenside, the white stands on the field a1, the black on a8. The latter is posted on the kingside; the white stands on the field h1, the black on h8.

Possible moves and value

A tower can move both horizontally and vertically, across any number of fields. He may move linearly on each open field in any direction, without jump over other pieces. The only exception to this is the castling, during which the tower jumps once via the King. A row or line of the chessboard may move along a tower over white and black squares and placed on any other field, as far as the way is clear. In contrast to all other figures of the tower from any position sweeps from - with free cyclone track - always the same number of fields of the chessboard, namely 14 When castling successively king and rook are moved as part of the same move.

The value of the tower is estimated at five pawns. As with all the figures, this number can vary. Especially in closed positions of the tower is restricted in its movement possibilities.

History

The representation of the tower results from figures that showed an elephant with tower attachment. In the Indian chess game, however, the elephant took the place of today's rotor (cf. alfil ).

Linguistically, the term developed rok (Sanskrit ) or smell (Persian ) for " field " or " chariot " ( meaning " straight attack with the chariot " ) smell on the concept of the Latin roccus and thus to the alleged same rocca ( Italian for castle ). This is also the English name was rook. Occasionally the oriental mythology also speculated about an etymological connection with the roc.

In medieval chess Roch was the strongest character because of Fers did not yet have the possible moves of the lady. For this reason, the tower or Roch was often used as a crest figure.

The tower in the three phases of the game

In the opening

In the initial phase of a lot of tower plays a subordinate role, as long as the farmers limit its train tracks. Its use often begins with the castling that puts the tower more towards the center; or in heterogeneous ( opposite ) castlings by (for example, h2 - h4 or h7 - h5 short castling of the opponent ) is attempted by a margin of pawn moves to open the output line of the tower, so as to support an attack on the king.

In the middle game

The tower is a typical middlegame or endgame figure. The more characters are removed from the game in the game of course, the better the tower can leverage its reach. For this reason, efforts as a player to position his rooks on open lines, where they can best play to their strengths.

In the final

The checkmate with Rook and King against King is easy to do, but only by the opponent's king is marginalized. Playoffs with towers and farmers called rook endings; these make up about half of all finals.