Manoeuvres second rook at first with advantage (5)
I believe the answer is:
ruses
'manoeuvres' is the definition.
(ruse is a kind of manoeuvre)
'second rook at first with advantage' is the wordplay.
'second' becomes 's' (common abbreviation).
'rook' becomes 'R' (chess abbreviation).
'at first' says to put letters next to each other.
'with' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'advantage' becomes 'use' (I've seen this before).
's' put after 'r' is 'rs'.
'rs' going around 'use' is 'RUSES'.
(Other definitions for ruses that I've seen before include "'Stratagems, tricks (5)'" , "Subterfuges" , "Tricks or deceptions" , "Clever strategems or plans" , "Stratagem designed to deceive" .)