rooks are very powerful they just never get out til endgame -I sometimes wonder if a shogi rule could be added to chess;
- the ability to remove a pawn infront of a rook as a move, there are quite a few times for me that would be useful.
With 'square counting' they eclipse minor pieces, but its hard realising that. i regularly sac pawns to open up rooks, the posistion is worth more without the pawn infront of the rook!
From games played on RHP this 7 mover with the a8 Rook has happened
quite a few times.
AThousandYoung (1246) hamid0001 (1259) RHP 2 ...[text shortened]... 6. Qxd8+ Rxd8 {Sometimes White plays 7.Bxc6+ here and then grabs the e5 pawn.}7. Nxe5 Rd1[/pgn]
I guess its all about the amount of squares a piece controls at any given time. Rooks are weak in the opening until they are connected and/or have open files to work along.
The knight is the most powerful guy in the starting position because it is not disrupted by the pawns.
Send payment for the lesson to hedonist c/o rhp.com. A tenner each should be enough๐
This was the game i was going to post - i got beaten quite bad! I missed 17 Bf5g4 very nice move, but i saw that if i gave up my queen there was still some (deluded) hope of continuing my attack with 2 rooks. If i don't, it actualy looks worse so i moved the king to open up the rook, it just might of worked in a blitz game.