Dg275: Black to move
Dg275: What White pieces are loose? The bishop at c3. Black needs a way to attack it and attack something else at the same time— preferably the White king. His queen is off the board, so what might he do with his rook? He can attack the loose bishop with Rd3. That move doesn’t attack the king directly, but the opportunity presented by the loose piece is important, so think harder; examine the White king’s position carefully. The bishop at b6 cuts off the g1 square. The bishop on e4 pins the pawn on g2. So if Black could get a rook onto the h-file, it would be mate. This idea can be put together with the previous one: Rd3 both attacks the bishop and threatens to end the game with Rh3#; after White fends off the mate threat, Black plays RxB. The lesson is to always be aware of the enemy king (not to mention your own) and any of your pieces that constrain it.
The motif illustrated by this position—the fork that targets an enemy piece at one end and threatens mate at the other—is familiar from the previous chapters. It occurs less of-
ten with the rook than with the other pieces we have considered because the rook less often is in position to do both of those things. We consider it here only briefly.
Dg276: Black to move
Dg276: This time you might begin by inspect- ing the enemy king (White's) and the con- straints on its movement. Black’s bishop at- tacks h2, and g1 is off limits because White’s own knight is there. So the White king has very limited mobility, and this vulnerability is a tactical opening. If Black could just aim another piece at the king, he might have a mating threat; even if it were easily thwarted, it might enable him to win material by serving as the anchor for a double attack. Best of all would be to land an attacker on h2, since Black already covers that square with his bishop. His rook can prepare to do this with 1. …Rf2. This creates multiple threats at once, which is your general goal as a tactician. The first threat is that White’s queen is now at- tacked twice and guarded just once (by the knight on g1). If White’s queen moves, either to play QxQ or just to get someplace safer, Black also threatens to mate with Rh2. If White replies to Rf2 with QxR, then of course Black plays QxQ. White’s best reply probably is to play his own rook from d7 to d2, thus preparing to recapture, with a loss, after Black plays RxQ.
2.4.7 Strategic Implications.
Rooks do not need to be in the center of the board to be effective. In principle, at least, they have the potential to attack the same
number of squares—a full rank, and a full file—no matter where they sit on the board. They generally do need to be moved out of the corners to gain power, however, and mov- ing a rook toward the middle of the board has the particular advantage of making it easier to launch double attacks with the rook against pieces on the same file (i.e., pieces aligned vertically). It stands to reason: double attacks require rooks to get between two enemy pieces; the farther the rook is advanced into the center, the greater the opportunities for enemy pieces to end up on both sides of it. Likewise, rooks on the four middle files are more likely to be able to get between enemy pieces lying on the same rank (i.e., aligned horizontally). Glance at where the rooks that inflicted the double attacks in this chapter generally were positioned at the start of the sequence; ideally, that is where you want your rooks to be: centralized.
Whether they do their work out on the board or from posts on the back rank, what rooks most generally require are open files ahead of them. They don’t do much good sitting be- hind their own pawns unless the pawn is on its way to promotion on the opponent’s back rank. Make it a priority to get your rooks onto open files (or half-open files—files where none of your own pawns sit, even if your op- ponent still has a pawn in place.) Move your rooks there or move pawns out of their way by making captures with them.
Dg277: Black to move
Dg277: Indeed, there is a whole opening—the King's Gambit—premised partly on this idea. White offers to sacrifice his f-pawn on the second move, as shown to the left. What does
this pawn push on the second move have to do with rooks?
Everything: once his f-pawn is gone, White will have a half-open file onto which he can bring his rook just by castling on the kingside a few moves later. That rook suddenly can easily become a terror, bearing down on f7— typically a weak point in Black's position. Of course there are many other consequences of the King's Gambit; it's a complicated opening. The point for now is just to see how gaining an open avenue for a rook can be a part of the planning from the first steps of the game. In a sense all this is just another application of some principles given at the end of the chap- ter on the bishop fork. Here, as there, pawn moves are significant in part because of the lines they open and close. From an offensive standpoint, a pawn capture that creates an open line for a rook may be very valuable for just that reason; from a defensive standpoint, think carefully about any capturing sequences that will have the effect of opening files for your opponent’s rooks. And once a file does open, try to claim it by planting a rook at its base.
The positions in this chapter also underscore another point we have seen elsewhere: the importance of creating open lines to the en- emy king and of avoiding open lines to your own king. In the rook’s case an “open line” includes the back rank if it can get that far and no defenders are there. Anytime an enemy rook has an open path to your back rank, or a path obstructed only by its own pieces, start worrying. Anytime your own rook is in that position, start experimenting.