Ranging Rook or Swinging Rook (振り飛車 furibisha) openings in shogi position the rook to the center or left of the player's board to support an attack there.
Ranging Rook strategies used in Ranging Rook vs Static Rook are among the oldest of shogi strategies attested in the historical documents that first describe the rules of shogi around 1600.
Description
Types of Ranging Rook
Traditionally, Ranging Rook has been used as a defensive strategy for White against Static Rook openings played by Black. White's rook can be moved flexibly to counteract Black's attacks. These types of White openings are named simply Ranging Rook (振り飛車 furibisha). In describing the game positions of both opponents, the term is Static Rook vs Ranging Rook (居飛車対振り飛車 ibisha tai furibisha). In these games, Black has the initiative, and White quickly builds a defense by castling the king and seeks counterattacking opportunities.
By default, the term 振り飛車 usually assumes that the Ranging Rook player is White as it was played traditionally. However, Ranging Rook positions are also possible for Black, when it is specifically referred to as Black's Ranging Rook (先手振り飛車 sente furibisha).
From its defensive origins, the standard way to play Ranging Rook openings is for the player to close the bishop's diagonal by advancing a pawn to the 66 square when played by Black or advancing to 44 when played by White. Thus, Ranging Rook is sometimes termed Ordinary Ranging Rook or Normal Ranging Rook (ノーマル振り飛車 nōmaru furibisha) or Standard Ranging Rook (スタンダード振り飛車 sutandādo furibisha) to contrast with the newer Ranging Rook strategies that keep the bishop's diagonal open. Since the traditional Ranging Rook prevents early bishop exchanges, it is described as a slow game (持久戦 jikyūsen) in Japanese. Preventing an early bishop exchange allows for the Ranging Rook player to develop the castle and defense without needing to worry about being stymied by bishop drops.
The traditional normal type of Ranging Rook contrasts with Ranging Rook positions that allow a bishop trade off to occur at any time (often early in the opening), which are known as Bishop Exchange Ranging Rook (角交換振り飛車 kaku kōkan furibisha) or Open Bishop Diagonal Ranging Rook (角道オープン振り飛車 kaku michi ōpen furibisha). These openings include Quick Ishida, Cheerful Central Rook, Bishop Exchange Fourth File Rook, Direct Opposing Rook, among others.
Normal Ranging Rook
1. P-76 P-34, 2. P-26. The Normal openings start by Black opening the bishop's diagonal (P-76) and showing the intention to play Static Rook (P-26). White responds by opening the bishop's diagonal as well. The order 1. P-76 P-34, 2. P-26 is the most common, but of course the moves may be transposed as in 1. P-26 P-34, 2. P-76.
2... P-44. The traditional, defensive play starts with the fourth move. With this standard move White prevents an early bishop exchange by closing the bishop's diagonal. This allows White to start building the castle and further developing pieces without having to worry about bishop drops that would otherwise be possible if the bishop diagonal was left open and Black initiated a bishop exchange.
These four opening moves characterize most Normal Ranging Rook positions when the rooks are moved to different files.
After this, the most common moves by Black are to move the right silver up to the fourth file (3. S-48) or to continue advancing the rook's pawn (3. P-25). If Black chooses the rook's pawn option, White must respond by moving the bishop to the third file (3... B-33) to prevent Black from getting a pawn in hand through a pawn exchange on the second file.
Double Ranging Rook
Double Ranging Rook (相振り飛車 aifuribisha) is the class of openings when both players use Ranging Rook strategies. The josekis for these opening are less developed than many of the other types of games such as Double Static Rook (相居飛車 aiibisha) and Static Rook vs Ranging Rook.
Classification of positions by file
Ranging Rook strategies are classified according to which file the rook moves to. They are generally named from White's perspective since the strategies were originally developed as defensive positions by White. For instance, the Third File Rook opening is named third file because when White moves the rook into position, it will end up on the third file (R-32). If the same Third File Rook opening were played by Black, then Black's rook would move to the seventh file (R-78).
The Opposing Rook opening moves a rook to the same file as the opponent's rook. For White, this Opposing Rook position is the second file (R-22) while the position played by Black is the eighth file (R-88). The moved rook thus opposes the opponent's rook.