Active rook: attacking instead of just protecting

In short

Imagine an endgame with rooks. Your rook stands next to an enemy pawn and attacks it from the side. The enemy rook has to stay behind the pawn and protect it. Your rook is called active, the other one passive.

In the middlegame this difference would be small, Nimzowitsch writes. In the endgame, on the other hand, it weighs heavily. The active rook can lead an attack on the other wing, such as a pawn advance. The passive rook does not get there in time, and your king can wander undisturbed.

That is why strong players often fight for a long time for the active rook position. Nimzowitsch advises: if you can only protect a pawn with a passive rook, sacrifice it instead. But he does not want to awaken a taste for sacrificing, and he demands that every case be checked carefully.

For passed pawns Nimzowitsch takes over a rule from Tarrasch: the rook belongs behind the passed pawn. Behind its own pawn it escorts it and gives it strength. Behind the enemy pawn it stays mobile. It can pick up other pawns and disturb the king that is heading for the pawn.

Start with lesson 38. There you put a rook behind a passed pawn and, in Becker – Nimzowitsch, choose between protection and attack. Lesson 23 shows how the king joins the fight in the endgame. In the games against Giersing and Jacobsen, a passive black rook suffers each time.

Summarised by the editors in their own words. This is not a quotation.

A rook that fights back

Nimzowitsch also shows how a defender escapes the passive role. In a teaching example a white rook attacks a black pawn. Black does not protect it. The black rook breaks into the white camp and places itself behind the white a-pawn. The pawn is lost, but the black rook is now very mobile. According to Nimzowitsch, passive protection would probably have lost.

Nimzowitsch played like this himself. In Becker – Nimzowitsch he leaves an attacked pawn where it is. Instead his rook captures a white pawn with check. Shortly afterwards he expressly rejects a passive rook position. In Behting – Nimzowitsch he gives up a pawn so that his king can join in. Later his rook cuts off the white king.

Knights and bishops too

According to Nimzowitsch, the difference between attacker and defender also applies to the minor pieces. A protecting knight often has no waiting move that keeps up the protection. That is why it easily falls into zugzwang. A protecting bishop switches fronts more slowly than an attacking one.

Today’s view

Today, too, the rule in rook endgames is: often it is decided by whose rook is more active. But not every teaching example is as clear-cut as Nimzowitsch wrote. In the case of the rook that fights back, for example, modern analyses also consider passive protection to be enough to hold. His rule is therefore a good guideline, but no substitute for checking the position carefully.

Where to find it in Nimzowitsch

• My System: I. Teil, 6.2 Die aggressive Turmstellung als charakteristischer Endspielvorteil original text not yet published

  The active rook as a typical endgame advantage, the rule about sacrificing a pawn, Tarrasch’s rule and the weaknesses of passive knights and bishops.

• My System: I. Teil, 6.4 Die „Materialisierung“ des abstrakten Begriffes: „die Linie“ oder „die Reihe“ original text not yet published

  How in the endgame a file turns into a point you can get hold of; at the end of Nimzowitsch – Jacobsen the passive black rook suffers.

• My System: I. Teil, Partien zur Bauernkette original text not yet published

  Games on the pawn chain, including Becker – Nimzowitsch with a rook endgame in which Black avoids the passive rook position.

• Chess Praxis: Partie 53 (original text)

  Behting – Nimzowitsch: Black gives a pawn for an active king and cuts off the white king with the rook.

• The Blockade: Abschnitt X original text not yet published

  Nimzowitsch – Giersing: White is a piece down, but the black rook is tied to a pawn and completely passive.

In the course

• The king becomes active
• The active rook
• Nimzowitsch – Giersing, Copenhagen 1924
• Nimzowitsch – Jacobsen, Copenhagen 1923