Educational Endgame: Rook and King against a King Why Should You Learn How To Checkmate With A Rook? Checkmating your opponent is your ultimate goal when playing chess. To do that successfully, you must understand the ideas behind basic checkmating patterns. Since rooks usually are the last pieces to be developed and brought into the game, they are also the pieces that often stay on the board longer. Because of that, rook endgames are very frequent and, therefore, knowing how to checkmate your o