On a splendid November afternoon in Goa, I watched something familiar unfold on a chessboard. The Indian grandmaster Arjun Erigaisi, world number six, was destroyed by his Chinese counterpart Wei Yi.

In the game of chess, a rook can move as many spaces as it can in one direction. Or, it can sit stone-still and guard the pieces around it, potentially holding its ground for an entire match — or ...

In the game of chess, a rook can move as many spaces as it can in one direction. Or, it can sit stone-still and guard the pieces around it, potentially holding its ground for an entire match — or ...