Mysterious rook move: the rook waits for its file

In short

Imagine a file on which pawns of both sides are still standing. A rook on it hardly does anything at the moment. But perhaps your opponent wants to free their position with a pawn move. That would open exactly this file.

Nimzowitsch puts his rook on this file beforehand. If the opponent opens it, the rook is ready at once. So the opponent thinks twice about their freeing move. The move is therefore prevention, prophylaxis with the rook.

The name came from critics who made fun of such moves. Nimzowitsch kept it anyway, because in his view only the outward form was puzzling. A rook occupies a file that is still closed. The aim, by contrast, was clear.

The move has a price. If the file stays closed, the rook stands there for nothing; Nimzowitsch accepts this on purpose. It is only worth it against a genuine freeing move. If the pawn move does not help the opponent at all, just let them play it.

Start with lesson 40, where you put a rook on a file as a preventive measure. Lesson 21 explains prophylaxis in general. In von Gottschall against Nimzowitsch, such a rook move even occurs in the endgame.

Summarized by the editors in their own words. This is not a quotation.

Genuine and false freeing moves

For Nimzowitsch, whether a pawn move frees the opponent depends on the position. In his view, there is no freeing move that always helps. A player who is not yet well developed often only creates new weaknesses with a freeing pawn move.

On the other hand, an ordinary move can bring a lot of freedom if you are far ahead in development. So first check whether the freeing move is genuine. Only then is the mysterious rook move worth it.

When the move occurs

The mysterious rook move belongs most often in the opening, but also in the early middlegame. Nimzowitsch even shows examples from the endgame and from a difficult defense. Sometimes the rook also prepares an attack. Then it waits on a file that opens when the opponent pushes pawns on the kingside.

Nimzowitsch jokingly calls a rook move half-mysterious if it does not prevent anything but wants to become active. In “Chess Praxis”, too, he describes a rook move from his game against Breyer in this way.

What holds today

Today such moves are counted as prophylaxis. Their benefit often only shows many moves later. Even strong players judge them differently.

Where to find it in Nimzowitsch

• My System: II. Teil, 2.3 Hemmung. Die „mysteriösen“ Turmzüge original text not yet published

  Nimzowitsch explains the mysterious rook move, its name and the difference between genuine and false freeing moves.

• My System: II. Teil, 2.5 Die verschiedenen Formen, unter denen die Hemmung aufzutreten pflegt, werden näher beleuchtet original text not yet published

  In an example on restraint, he explicitly calls a rook move in an emergency defense mysterious.

• Chess Praxis: 2.1 Hemmung befreiender Bauernvorstoße original text not yet published

  Introduction to the games in which freeing pawn advances are restrained.

• Chess Praxis: Partie 24 (original text)

  Nimzowitsch against Breyer: a characteristic rook move that he also calls mysterious.

In the course

• What does your opponent want?
• The mysterious rook move
• von Gottschall – Nimzowitsch, Hanover 1926