Rook (chess) Rook (chess) A rook (; ♖,♜) is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece (from Persian رخ "rokh"/"rukh") was called the "tower", "marquess", "rector", and "comes" . The term "castle" is considered informal, incorrect, or old-fashioned. Each player starts the game with two rooks, one on each of the corner squares on their own side of the board. The white rooks start on squares a1 and h1, while the black rooks start on a8 and h8. The rook moves horizontally or vertically, through any number of unoccupied squares (see diagram). As with captures by other
Kriegspiel (chess) follows. The game is played with three boards, one for each player; the third is for the umpire (and spectators). Each opponent knows the exact position of just their pieces, and does not know where the opponent's pieces are (but can keep track of how many there are). Only the umpire knows the position of the game. The game proceeds in the following way: The umpire announces: Pawn promotions are not announced. Kriegspiel is sometimes used in chess problems. In these, usual variations introduced by different black moves are replaced by variations introduced by different announcements. An example of a