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Rook's Gambit

Strategy with a nasty sense of humor

Theo Park · Sep 7, 2026 · Columnist

A staff favorite. Bring it to a friend who thinks they are done with chess.

Rook's Gambit looks like a chess cousin and plays like a negotiation. Pieces complain, defect, and occasionally tell the truth about your last move. Theo has been calling it research for three weeks. The column this month is basically a confession.

The campaign teaches by letting you be clever and then petty. Multiplayer is asynchronous and kind about time zones. It loses a fraction of a point for a tutorial that winks too long before it gets out of the way.