The first time it comes up, you need to move the rook (or sac some material with qxn), and why put it on c1 where it is behind the pawn and can never do anything, and also prevents the king from moving to c1. Your king is temporarily safe in the middle of the board, but the option of kc1 is very nice to have. The second time it comes up, the rook is not under attack, so the rationale is much less compelling, and in fact, if you let stockfish run longer, rb1 drops out of the top 3. Nonetheless, the rook would still be better on b1 - its just that with the rook not under attack, you have better things to do.
What is the point of Rb1 in this game?
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May 16, 2020
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#3
So, is 19. Qxf3 really the way to go? In that line I am seeing Kd3!!
What should white be thinking?
Well, the rook is going to be a lousy piece for a long time, whereas the knight is useful to black. Also gives the king access to a better square, of if d2 is chosen, forces the queen to an inactive retreat. Its a screwy position regardless, with latent tactics beyond my range obviously being very important, so I can't comment other than that that rb1 is clearly better than rc1, and sacking some material with qxf3 seems reasonable as well.
Honestly, as much as stockfish likes the position, it seems like it would be very easy for a human to lose the advantage due to king safety. Its also pretty obvious that white can't trade pieces willy nilly and must make something of the position before trading off lots of stuff and letting black's pawns become a menace.
Haven't really thought about it in depth, but it seems like when white has time, attacking down the hfile could be the way to go. Much harder for black to deal with than pressure down the ffile.
It came up a couple times, and I simply could not see how to make anything out of my 2+ lead.
I played Rc1 instead to protect the c2 pawn and usually I see this in games where rook is placed on the c file and the c pawn gets pushed. I was going to attack the d pawn when the queen on c3 got out of the way.