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Is 2 rooks better than 1 queen ?

Is 2 rooks better than 1 queen ?

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How capitalize this advantage in the middle game, close to ending ??

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Originally posted by MetalPig
How capitalize this advantage in the middle game, close to ending ??
It depends on quite a few things.. .. personally, I find a big factor is how well protected your king is.. if the king is out in the open, then the Queen will pick up the rooks eventually using forks..

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[Event "WCh"]
[Site "Brissago SUI"]
[Date "2004.09.25"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Leko, Peter"]
[Black "Kramnik, V."]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C42"]
[WhiteElo "2741"]
[BlackElo "2770"]
[PlyCount "130"]
[EventDate "2004.09.25"]
[Source "Mark Crowther"]
[SourceDate "2004.09.27"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 d6 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. d4 d5 6. Bd3 Nc6 7. O-O Be7 8. c4
Nb4 9. Be2 O-O 10. Nc3 Bf5 11. a3 Nxc3 12. bxc3 Nc6 13. Re1 Re8 14. cxd5 Qxd5
15. Bf4 Rac8 16. h3 Be4 17. Be3 Na5 18. c4 Nxc4 19. Bxc4 Qxc4 20. Nd2 Qd5 21.
Nxe4 Qxe4 22. Bg5 Qxe1+ 23. Qxe1 Bxg5 24. Qa5 Bf6 25. Qxa7 c5 26. Qxb7 Bxd4 27.
Ra2 c4 28. Re2 Red8 29. a4 c3 30. Qe4 Bb6 31. Qc2 g6 32. Qb3 Rd6 33. Rc2 Ba5
34. g4 Rd2 35. Kg2 Rcd8 36. Rxc3 Bxc3 37. Qxc3 R2d5 38. Qc6 Ra5 39. Kg3 Rda8
40. h4 R5a6 41. Qc1 Ra5 42. Qh6 Rxa4 43. h5 R4a5 44. Qf4 g5 45. Qf6 h6 46. f3
R5a6 47. Qc3 Ra4 48. Qc6 R8a6 49. Qe8+ Kg7 50. Qb5 R4a5 51. Qb4 Rd5 52. Qb3
Rad6 53. Qc4 Rd3 54. Kf2 Ra3 55. Qc5 Ra2+ 56. Kg3 Rf6 57. Qb4 Raa6 58. Kg2 Rf4
59. Qb2+ Raf6 60. Qe5 Rxf3 61. Qa1 Rf1 62. Qc3 R1f2+ 63. Kg3 R2f3+ 64. Qxf3
Rxf3+ 65. Kxf3 Kf6 0-1

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Originally posted by MIODude
It depends on quite a few things.. .. personally, I find a big factor is how well protected your king is.. if the king is out in the open, then the Queen will pick up the rooks eventually using forks..
The queen COULD have a hard time against two rooks, depends what else is on the board. Me personally, just let me have my queen. Just makes me feel better.

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How about queen for two rooks? Although many authors talk about queen and pawn equaling two rooks, this is only close to true with no minor pieces on the board; with two or more minors each, the queen needs no pawns to equal the rooks. I recall a famous Portisch-Fischer game in which Portisch "won" two rooks for Fischer's queen right out of the opening, but Fischer soon won a weak pawn and went on to win rather easily, despite the nominal point equality. In fact Fischer's annotations severely criticized Portisch for making the trade; Fischer understood very well that with lots of material on the board, the queen is every bit as good as the rooks, so once he won a pawn he was effectively a full pawn ahead.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm

1 edit
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The rooks are superior when they can double on an open file and cooperate, while the queen is superior when there are no open files, but open diagonals.

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Originally posted by AThousandYoung
[b]How about queen for two rooks? Although many authors talk about queen and pawn equaling two rooks, this is only close to true with no minor pieces on the board; with two or more minors each, the queen needs no pawns to equal the rooks. I recall a famous Portisch-Fischer game in which Portisch "won" two rooks for Fischer's queen right out of the ...[text shortened]...

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/danheisman/Articles/evaluation_of_material_imbalance.htm
Great article! (rec'd)

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Originally posted by LordOfTheChessboard
The rooks are superior when they can double on an open file and cooperate, while the queen is superior when there are no open files, but open diagonals.
My experience of odd material balances has been mixed. I think the difficulty for the player with the rooks isn't so much a matter of open files vs diagonals - if each side has that many pawns then the rooks will be protecting each other and the pawns on the back rank - but one of piece coordination: the two rooks have to be able to work together, whereas the queen is an independent woman. So in grandmaster chess two rooks are, in general, better than a queen, but at the level at which most of us play a queen is certainly easier.

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Originally posted by MIODude
It depends on quite a few things.. .. personally, I find a big factor is how well protected your king is.. if the king is out in the open, then the Queen will pick up the rooks eventually using forks..
I think I would play the Rooks on the same rank or file . Fork away all you want.

1 edit
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I know I've played this imbalance on this site but can't remember who against and I can't seem to find it using Chessbase's material search.

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Give me both Rooks any day. Whenever I have been able to win both rooks for my Queen I have almost invariably won(the one exception was a draw by perpetual check)

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Here are some games where I accepted to capture the two rooks for my queen.

Game 755480

and Game 1502439, although I saw that I might get another piece due to the exchange.

D

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