When, Where and Why to move other rook after castling.

After castling is over, the rook involved in castling serves some purpose. However the other rook sitting in a corner hardly seems to pull it's weight in most of my games. First of all I tend to forget about it's existence. Secondly, when I do remember it (and this happens mostly when I can't think of any other decent move to make), I can't figure out where to keep it so that it has some positive effect on results. I wonder if this is just me or other players face the same sense of inadequacy.

It will be nice if some players throw light on this aspect of rook movement.

If you castle queenside and move your other rook next to it, you will get great central control.

 WOW - never thought that way. Thanks!

 I know how you feel, I wish I was better at using them, I always feel like I waste the rooks in games because I don't want to waste the moves to pull them out (lazy/impatient?)

Thanks RealityMate for sharing in such details. It gives me an idea that if I do not move my rooks as much as I would like to do, perhaps I am not terribly off the target.

What is isolani?

I have seen some games by players of 2200+ rating where the square they kept their other rook on, turned out to be very critical after about 10-15 moves or so for supporting some other attacking piece. It makes me think they already had some sort of picture in their mind before placing that rook. I mean as far as I am concerned, the rook could have been placed on d1, e1 or f1 - as it wasn't doing anything great in either of these squares - but magically the square on which it was placed, turned out to be the right square after 10-15 moves!

Isolani: Don't bother, got it - isolated pawn on d (queen) file.

Gambitbuster, problem is that I can't understand the motive behind these moves by GMs. I want to understand why did he keep it on f1 and not e1 or g1..., I mean since nothing was happening in next few moves, why one square was preferred over other - when it was not even lording over an open file.

However it seems from most of the responses here that moving the other rook should be looked at like development for controlling centre or a file. It seems many a times there is not much of a deep tactic behind moving a rook.

It's not possible to understand all moves made by a GM, at least to the point where they're obvious enough we can play the moves ourselves.

GMs likely have a lot of experience and study in the type of position they're facing when they move a rook to an inexplicable square that turns out to be good 10-15 moves later.  And sometimes, they do move their rook to a less-useful square, but work hard to try and make the move work anyway (not wanting to lose time moving the rook again) and it may turn out useful later when with best play from the opponent the original rook move would have been an inaccuracy.

The tips for rooks to beginners is to keep them on the back rank during the middle game, because they're important defenders of your back rank, and move them to open or half open files.  Open files are columns of squares with no pawns on them (the rook can be very active here) and half open files are columns of squares with only one color pawn on them.

If there are no open or half open files, it's generally a good idea to place them in the center on e1/d1 for white and e8/d8 for black. 

The rooks can also be placed on files you except to open soon.  This means behind pawns you want to support to push forward and create open files.  They can also be useful behind a pawn that will become weakened as a result of pushing a pawn to create an open file.

If it's an especially good file then it can be useful to "double" rook there, which means you stack one on top of the other for added power.  This usually threatens to infiltrate (place a piece inside enemy territory).  It can be a rook itself, or the doubled rooks can support a knight infiltration for example.

If nothing else, then as realitymate said you can line them up on the same file as the enemy king or queen, and that can be useful.

When the rook comes off the back rank, one of the most useful places it can infiltrate is on the enemy's 2nd rank.  Especially if you can double your rooks on the enemy's 2nd rank you'll have a very large advantage.  (The enemy's 2nd rank is where all the enemy pawns start at the beginning of the game).  Double on the 2nd rank means the rooks will be placed side by side on the enemy's 2nd rank.

When a rook comes off the back rank for another reason, (called a "rook lift") such rook lifts are probably more likely to happen on your 3rd rank (as in his example) and for the purpose of attacking.  These can be risky because it leaves your back rank undefended and are relatively uncommon in rook activation (especially at the amateur level), but if you're an attacking player this type of rook operation may appeal to you.

As you continue to play, these rook moves won't be so mysterious.   The important thing is to just keep in mind that you're trying to do with rooks the same thing you're trying to do with all of your pieces, and that's give them a job to do -- a square where they're active.  For rooks this is most commonly on open or half open files or on a center file and on the back rank.

Rooks in open lines, double if it's only one line.

Thanks Orangehonda.

Heck, RealityMate's account is closed and with that went out of the window his very useful comment!

The chess.com programmers should really work on this - the old posts should not be deleted just because a member decided to leave or is made to leave. So many related posts become meaningless.

In Team India a member Basheer had posted some very nice information on chess openings. Due to some personal reasons he closed his account - and out went all his useful posts! Very frustrating...

I'm not sure it adds anything but I'm trying to learn in the KID not to knee jerk Re8 after castling. If the center is closed, it might be better left unmoved in case I want to push the f-pawn for a pawn break. It's another one of those "it depends" things.

If you castle kingside, the rook on f1 is rarely positioanal better than the one on a1. You should set the rooks in open files, or where there will soon be an open file. No piece should do nothing, so be aware of how you use your rooks, and remember to always have a plan in the middlegame.

A famous quote goes: "When you have to move a rook, think about it. When you decide on which rook... move the other one."

It depends on the postion, of course. This is recycled advice from better players than me, of course (I wish I could make that automatically preface all my posts):

If you are having trouble figuring out where to place your rooks, you aren't finding the right break moves. If you aren't finding the right break moves, it's probably because you are blocking them off in your opening.

Study break moves: When to use them, how to select the right one, and how to set it up early in the game. Once you understand those, your rooks will move naturally to their proper positions.

Pardon my ignorance, what is a break move?

Rad1

I'm an amateur, so this stuff is sure to be full of blunders, but I hope that the general idea about breaks and using rooks is helpful.

It's a pawn move that forces the exchange of some pawns early in the game, creating the first open and semi-open files.