Polish Opening: Rooks Swap Line
1. b4 e6 2. Bb2 Nf6 3. b5 a6 4. a4 axb5 5. axb5 Rxa1 6. Bxa1
The Polish Opening: Rooks Swap Line is a chess opening classified as ECO A00, reached after 1. b4 e6 2. Bb2 Nf6 3. b5 a6 4. a4 axb5 5. axb5 Rxa1 6. Bxa1. It is a line of the Polish Opening. Black is to move.
In 12.6 million rated Lichess games (blitz and slower), this position was reached 80 times by this move order. White won 51%, 1% were drawn and Black won 48%. The most popular continuation is 6… c6 (44% of games).
Engine evaluation: 0.00 (Stockfish, depth 42; best line 6… Be7 7. e3 d5 8. Nf3 c5 9. c4)
- ECO
- A00
- Moves
- 11 plies
- FEN
1nbqkb1r/1ppp1ppp/4pn2/1P6/8/8/2PPPPPP/BN1QKBNR b Kk - 0 6- PGN
1. b4 e6 2. Bb2 Nf6 3. b5 a6 4. a4 axb5 5. axb5 Rxa1 6. Bxa1
Analyse with Stockfish · Board image (SVG) · Open on Lichess
Results by rating
| Average rating | Games | White / draw / Black |
|---|---|---|
| 0-1499 | 9 | |
| 1500-1999 | 52 | |
| 2000+ | 19 | |
| All | 80 |
Most played moves
| Move | Games | White / draw / Black |
|---|---|---|
| 6… c6 | 35 (44%) | |
| 6… d5 | 24 (30%) | |
| 6… Be7 | 6 (8%) | |
| 6… b6 | 6 (8%) | |
| 6… Bc5 | 4 (5%) | |
| 6… c5 | 2 (3%) | |
| 6… Bb4 | 1 (1%) | |
| 6… Qe7 | 1 (1%) |
Master games
16 over-the-board games are classified under this line (White 63%, draw 18%, Black 19%). The strongest:
- IM Mark Timmermans (2385) – GM Deepan Chakkravarthy J. (2535) 1-0 · Titled Tuesday 17th Nov · 2020-11-17
- IM Mark Timmermans (2403) – IM Ondrej Svanda (2379) 1/2-1/2 · Titled Tue 10th Dec Early · 2024-12-10
- IM Alfonso Llorente Zaro (2443) – FM Rodolfos Stamatiou (2274) 0-1 · Titled Tue 11th Mar Late · 2025-03-11
- IM Mark Timmermans (2385) – FM Collin Colbow (2329) 1-0 · Titled Tuesday 28th Sept · 2021-09-28
- IM Mark Timmermans (2385) – WGM Atousa Pourkashiyan (2322) 1-0 · Titled Tuesday 1st June · 2021-06-01
Search all games of the Polish Opening: Rooks Swap Line and its sub-variations
Highest-rated Lichess games
- Fraysinator (2705) – StoleLaf (2573) 1-0 · 2026-09-02 · 180 + 0s
- DragonsWarrior2080 (2350) – CipolloMarini (2354) 1-0 · 2026-09-05 · 300 + 0s
- Eyes-0pen (2289) – MarinovicBozo (2407) 1-0 · 2026-09-02 · 300 + 0s
Comes from
Polish Opening: Queenside Defense 1. b4 e6 2. Bb2 Nf6 3. b5 a6
More Polish Opening lines (all)
- Polish Opening A00
- Polish Opening: Baltic Defense A00
- Polish Opening: Birmingham Gambit A00
- Polish Opening: Bugayev Advance Variation A00
- Polish Opening: Bugayev Attack A00
- Polish Opening: Czech Defense A00
- Polish Opening: Dutch Defense A00
- Polish Opening: German Defense A00
- Polish Opening: Grigorian Variation A00
- Polish Opening: Karniewski Variation A00
- Polish Opening: King's Indian Variation A00
- Polish Opening: King's Indian Variation, Schiffler Attack A00
Opening names and moves from the Lichess openings dataset; statistics from the Lichess open database, 2026-09 (CC0), sample of 12.6 million games, bots excluded; evaluations from Lichess cloud analysis (all CC0). Master games from The Week in Chess #920–#1664 by Mark Crowther, used with permission.