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
Apocalypse (chess variant) A footman promotes to horseman when reaching the last , but only when the player has fewer than two horsemen. Otherwise the player must redeploy the footman to any vacant square. A player wins by being first to eliminate all of the opponent's footmen. Accumulating two penalty points forfeits the game. A stalemate is a draw. Bibliography Apocalypse (chess variant) Apocalypse is a chess variant invented by C. S. Elliott in 1976. The players each start with two "horsemen" and five "footmen" on a 5×5 board. The two sides make their moves simultaneously. The game was featured in Issue 53