Step 9: Advanced Track · about 30 min

Open Files and the Seventh Rank

🖨 Worksheet 🔑 Answer key 🖨 Easy-reading worksheet

Goal: Kids put rooks on open and half-open files and invade the seventh rank.

You need: Demo board · One board and set per pair

1 · Teach it (20 min)

Read these out loud, or put them in your own words. Show each board on screen or set it up on a demo board.

1.“Rooks need open files: highways with no pawns. A half-open file has only an enemy pawn on it. That's good too, because your rook attacks that pawn.”
2.“Once a rook controls an open file, it can drive down it to the seventh rank, the opponent's second row. There it attacks pawns that haven't moved, and it can trap the enemy king on the back row.”
3.“Two rooks on the seventh rank are so strong that players call them 'pigs', because they gobble up pawns.”
4.“To win the fight for a file, double your rooks: put one behind the other on the same file. Then the opponent can't challenge it.”

With younger kids: Open files are highways, and the seventh rank is the 'enemy's backyard'. Rooks drive the highway into the backyard.

Watch for:

Leaving rooks on closed files behind their own pawns.
Going to the seventh rank when the rook can just be trapped or traded off.

2 · Play it: Highway Race (10 min)

Set up: Normal game in pairs.

Bonus point for the first rook onto an open file, and two for the first rook onto the seventh rank.
Doubling rooks on a file scores a bonus point too.

3 · Practice and pass check

On iPads, kids open Student → Step 9 → Rook Highways. On paper, print the worksheet. A kid passes by getting 2 of 3 on the pass check. The pass code for this lesson is S9-L4-TN.

Practice (3) with answers

1.Use the open file to get a rook to the seventh rank. Draw an arrow or write the move.

abcdefgh

Move: Rd7

2.Why is a rook strong on the seventh rank?

✓It attacks pawns that haven't moved and can trap the king
It can promote
It can't be attacked there

3.Circle any square on the open file.

abcdefgh

Answer: e1 or e2 or e3 or e4 or e5 or e6 or e7 or e8

Pass check (3) with answers

1.Black: take your rook down the open file to White's second rank. Draw an arrow or write the move.

hgfedcba

Move: Rd2

2.What is a half-open file?

✓A file with only the opponent's pawn on it
A file with one pawn of each color
A file half the board long

3.What does 'doubling your rooks' mean?

✓Putting both rooks on the same file
Trading a rook for two pieces
Moving a rook twice in a row

Topic order based on: How to Reassess Your Chess, Part 7 (open files, 7th rank). All wording is original.