ChessRanger
Strategy

Alekhine's gun

A heavy-piece battery of two rooks behind the queen, aimed down an open file.

Alekhine's gun stacks both rooks on a file with the queen behind them (rook, rook, queen), rather than the more common queen-in-front battery. The tripled force is overwhelming pressure on a single file or backward pawn, and the queen behind means the rooks can capture and recapture without the queen being exposed first.

Named for a famous Alekhine game, it's the maximal expression of doubling on a file: line up the gun against a fixed weakness and the defence usually cannot hold.

Why it matters

The gun is the heaviest pressure you can put on an open file — knowing the formation (and when it's worth the time to build) converts control of a file into a win.

The mistake everyone makes

Placing the queen in front of the rooks so it gets hit first, instead of behind them where the rooks do the fighting.

Related terms

Battery
Two pieces lined up on the same file, rank or diagonal so their power stacks.
Doubling rooks
Stacking both rooks on the same open file (or rank) to multiply their pressure.
Rook on the seventh
A rook on the opponent's second rank — attacking pawns and boxing in the king.
Rook lift
Bringing a rook into the attack along a rank, in front of its own pawns.

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