How the Rook Moves in Chess
The rook is the simplest piece to learn and one of the strongest. It looks like a castle tower and starts in the corners of the board.
Step 1 of 4
Straight lines
A rook moves in a straight line, forwards, backwards or sideways, as many squares as it likes. It never moves diagonally. From d4 in the middle of an empty board it can reach 14 squares: every square on its file and every square on its rank.
Collect the stars
Your turn. Each move must land on a star, and you can only reach a star along a straight line.
Your move
Move the rook onto each of the three stars.
Pieces block the way
A rook cannot jump. Your own pawn on d6 stops it at d5, so d6, d7 and d8 are out of reach. An enemy piece stops it too, but the rook may capture it by moving onto its square: here it can take the black pawn on f4, and go no further.
Capture the knight
A capture is just a move onto an enemy piece's square. The captured piece leaves the board for good.
Your move
Capture the black knight.
What you learned
- A rook moves any number of squares along a rank or a file.
- It cannot jump over pieces.
- It captures by moving onto an enemy piece's square.
In this course
Unit 1The pieces
Unit 2Special moves
Unit 3Winning the game
Unit 4Your first tactics
Unit 5Checkmate patterns
Unit 6More tactics
Unit 7Opening principles
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