The rook: straight lines, no jumping (and one special move)

The rook is often the second piece children feel confident with, right after the pawn. It looks like a little castle tower, it starts in the corners, and it moves in the simplest way on the board: in straight lines. That makes it a wonderful piece for building early confidence.

How the rook moves

A rook moves forwards, backwards, left or right, as many empty squares as it likes. It never moves diagonally, and it can never jump over another piece. If one of its own pieces is in the way, it has to stop before it. If an opponent's piece is in the way, the rook can capture it by landing on its square, and then the rook's move ends there.

Each player starts with two rooks, one in each corner of their back row.

Try this at home: Put a single rook in the middle of an empty board and ask your child to touch every square it could move to. Then add one pawn in its path and ask again. Seeing the line "stop" at the pawn makes the no-jumping rule stick.

A simple way to remember it

Many children like to imagine the rook as a train on tracks. The tracks only go straight, up and down or side to side, and a train can't drive through another train. For younger players, you can trace the "tracks" with a finger before they move, so they get used to checking the whole line.

Castling: the rook's special move

Castling is the one time a rook seems to hop over another piece, and it is a move that the king and a rook make together. The king moves two squares towards one of its rooks, and that rook moves to the square right next to the king, on the other side.

Castling is only allowed when:

• Neither the king nor that rook has moved yet in the game
• There are no pieces between the king and the rook
• The king is not in check
• The king does not pass through, or land on, a square that is attacked

That is a lot of rules for a four-year-old, so there is no rush. Most children do best learning how the rook moves on its own first, and coming back to castling once the basics feel easy.

Why rooks get stronger later

At the start of a game, rooks are often stuck behind pawns in their corners. As pieces come off the board, the lines open up and rooks can zoom across the whole board in one move. Two rooks working together on the same line can be very powerful, and older children enjoy discovering this.

Parent tip: When your child is ready, set up a king on its own against your child's king and two rooks, and let them try to push your king to the edge. It is a great first taste of checkmate.

Practising with ChessMons

In ChessMons, the How to Play lesson for the rook explains its moves with voice-over, so children can follow along even before they read. Practice then offers 20 puzzles for the rook, and if your child gets stuck, coach Tock gives step-by-step hints rather than the answer. A few puzzles a day, or the "Today's 3" daily puzzles, are plenty to make straight lines feel second nature.