Rook

From WikiChess

The rook is a castle-shaped piece. Rooks move horizontally or vertically. They can also do a specialmove with the king called castling. Each player starts out with two rooks at the beginning of the game. They are set up on the ends of rows 1 and 8, on the corners of the board. Rooks are worth 5 points each and are represented by a capital R in algebraic notation.

[edit] Strategy

Rooks are considered to be the second-most-powerful pieces in chess, after the queen. One would expect that with bishops moving diagonally, and rooks moving in straight paths up/down and left/right, the two pieces would be at least worth the same. However, the problem with this is that rooks can occupy any square on the board, while a bishop is restricted to its own-color squares, giving the rook more power. Also, rooks can castle, providing another aspect of their strategy.

A common form of checkmate during the endgame results from a rook - along with its twin, or a queen- moving across the length of the board, constantly giving check, forcing the king to move in one direction until the king is trapped on one row or column, upon which the rook or queen moves into, causing checkmate. Once it begins, that sort of strategy is difficult to counter.