Castling is a special defensive maneuver. It is the only time in the game when more than one piece may be moved during a turn. This move was invented in the 1500s to help speed up the game and to help balance the offense and defense. The castling move has some fairly rigid restrictions. Here you may to know how to play chess on game pigeon.How to Play Chess: Rules for Beginners: Learn Game Basics, Board Setup, Moves, Castling, En Passant.
One mistake that beginners often make is not castling their King to safety. Leaving your King exposed on a central file makes it easier for your opponent to launch a successful attack that leads to mate. This is why beginners are encouraged to castle their King to safety early in the game. However, beginners often take the idea of castling early literally and castle as soon as possible which can create problems later on. While King safety is crucial, the beginner can castle too early, ignoring further piece development and end up in a positional bind. So when should the beginner castle?
Before learning when to castle, the beginner should fully know the rules of castling which are fairly simple. To castle there have to be no pieces between the King and the Rook on the side you're castling on. Thus, on the King-side, you have to move the King-side Knight and Bishop off of their starting squares prior to castling. On the Queen-side, you have to move the Queen-side Knight, Bishop and Queen off of their starting squares. This means you have to develop two minor pieces on the King-side prior to castling or two minor pieces plus the Queen on the Queen-side prior to castling (on that side of the board). You cannot move your King prior to castling, If you do, you can't castle at all. If you move a Rook prior to castling, you cannot castle on that side of the board. Move both Rooks prior to castling and you're out of luck (no castling for you). You cannot castle if you're in check. Lastly, you cannot move your King through or onto a square controlled by an opposition pawn or piece. Looking at this list of requirements, you can see why beginners often panic and castle at the first chance they get!
One important idea, often lost on the beginner, is the idea of Rook activation. I see so many of my beginning students activate their minor pieces to decent squares during the opening and middle games only to ignore their Rooks throughout the entire game. Castling allows you to do two important things. The first is getting your King to safety. The second, which is extremely important, is to activate one of your Rooks. Rooks who sit on their starting squares are inactive pieces. The player with the most active pieces usually has an easier time controlling and subsequently winning the game. Moves that allow you to do two good things at the same time are the type of moves you want to make.
While castling is crucial, timing is everything. During the opening game, both players are fighting to control the center of the board. The only way to dominate or at least equalize control of the board's center is to carefully but rapidly deploy your pawns and pieces to active squares, those that control the greatest amount of centralized board space. Therefore, before castling, beginners should ask themselves two questions.
The first question: Is my King in present or future danger? Present danger means that it's your turn, your opponent's pieces are in attack formation and ready to start checking your King immediately. If so, castling is a good idea. When I say future danger, I mean that an attack on your King is possible during the next one or two opposition moves. Advanced players have a bit more leeway regarding future danger and just when to castle. Future danger translates to ' within the next few moves can my opponent's pieces attack my King, either forcing it to move, in which case my King loses the right to castle, or force me to weaken my position when I have to defend the King?' Of course, a potential immediate checkmate from the opposition within the next few moves should prompt you to castle if doing so saves the King! If the answer to this question is yes, then castle your King!
If you answered 'no' to the first question, then its time to ask the second question, 'are my pawns and pieces developed enough to control the board's center more so than my opponent's pawns and pieces? Most beginners consider castling before completing their development so the answer to this question is almost always 'no.' Time to look at your development.
Many beginners learn the Italian Opening because it provides a relatively clear example of the game's opening principles. For example, after 1.e4…e5, 2.Nf3…Nc6, 3.Bc4…Bc5, both players can castle on the King-side. This is where beginners get into trouble. They've been told by their chess instructors or by reading beginner's books that you should castle early. Beginner's take things literally, which often inspires them to castle as early as move four in the above opening move sequence. However, the opening is a fight for territorial control and the player that has it has a greater advantage. Advantages, both big and small, win games.
If your King is in no immediate danger, further development is in order. Keep developing pieces to active squares in order to shut down your opponent's chance at staking a claim to those very same squares. In the opening, it's all about the center. Just because you've developed your minor pieces on one side of your King is certainly no reason to ignore the pieces on his majesty's other side. Keep bringing those remaining minor pieces into the game. Pieces on their starting squares are not in the game. Those pieces are inactive and activity is the name of the opening game.
Then there's the question of which side of the board to castle on. Beginners tend to castle King-side because its easier since you don't have an additional piece to move (the Queen). However, Queen-side castling can be extremely effective. Why would you castle Queen-side? Here's a good reason: If your opponent has aimed his or her forces at your King-side, castling there is going to put your King directly in the line of fire. Castling on the opposite side of the attack will force your opponent to redirect his or her pieces, which has a price. That price is tempo or time (wasting it). While your opponent is redirecting pieces, you can be strengthening your position or building up an attack against your opponent's King. Don't make your opponent's job easier by castling into an attack or potential attack!
The next time you consider castling, ask yourself those two questions before doing so. If your do, you'll know if you're castling at the right time. Castling too early can make a position worse. Castling too late will send your King to an early grave. Here's a game to enjoy until next week. Notice how White finds a great way to solve a potential positional problem by castling!
Hugh Patterson
From lay fans to top Grandmasters, more or less everyone in the world of chess feel upset today about the huge number of draws that take place in virtually every classical elite tournament. Too much of theory reinforced by extensive engine work is seemingly rendering the game of chess sterile and lifeless. One therefore wonders what lies in the future of the royal game. Thankfully, solutions are being proposed and some of them are also being welcomed with open arms. The successful organization and popularity of the first FIDE Fischer Random World Championship is a testament to the same. Very recently the legendary Vladimir Kramnik has also proposed a lucrative solution to the problem which surprisingly appears to be even simpler and more efficient than the Fischer Random. Read on to know more.
Kramnik says No-Castling chess will ensure more than 50% decisive games at top level play!
High drawing percentage has become a menace at top level chess. According to many of the experts and top players, well established theories, particularly in the opening phase of the game, is taking away much of the fun and creativity in chess. In order to combat this problem, the 14th World Champion Vladimir Kramnik has come up with a very interesting suggestion - the No-Castling chess! Everything, just about every rule in it remains the same as in the regular chess. The only change being that the players cannot castle! How does this make things different? Read the following interview where IM Sagar Shah discusses the nuances of this new variant with Kramnik himself.
Sagar Shah (SS): Hi Vladimir, great to have you on the show. You are here to talk about a new variant of chess, how do you call it? Is the the No-Castling chess?
Queenside Castling Chess
Vladimir Kramnik (VK): Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me. I have honestly not thought about a proper name yet, it is just a proposition at the moment. It was probably proposed even before by Bronstein, I don't know for sure. I mean, I don't claim any copyright on this idea nor do I have any financial interest in it. It is just a concept that I have been fond of for quite some time and since now I have stopped playing chess and we have a certain collaboration with DeepMind, it somehow felt right to explore it more deeply. The whole idea was quite experimental in the beginning but I feel we have done some good work and found some interesting results that ought to be presented to the general public.
SS: Okay, so coming to the core of it, what you are proposing is that let the game of chess remain absolutely the same but you just remove the rule of castling, correct?
VK: Yes. Let me start from the beginning. First of all I have been a professional chess player myself and I have felt this problem more and more at top level play. I would hear this from everybody, they would often complain especially when playing White that they have nothing to play! (laughs) Well, you are supposed to try something at least and create some chances but you have no idea how you are going to do it. We are not talking about advantage anymore, it is just about getting some chances and a reasonable fight. I have faced this problem quite a lot myself. If you see the games I played in the later years, you would notice that I was trying all kinds of things, from 1.Nf3, 1.g3 to 1.d4 2.e3, and whatever, just to find a game. Actually I had already stopped looking for an advantage. I just wanted to get a game and even this was becoming more and more difficult. There is a clear demand from the chess fans in general who are disappointed by the statistics that reflect a huge number of draws but for me, the problem is not with the draws but the content of the games. I would like to clarify here that I am only talking about top level chess. For amateurs and club players this is not a problem at all. So I am not saying it has to be implemented everywhere. I mean, it is just a choice, to play with or without castling, and it doesn't have to necessarily substitute regular chess. But I was thinking more about getting back the interest in top level chess that has declined over time, because you know, the top level is sort of the face of chess. Again, there is clearly a demand for this as you can see Fischer random chess becoming more and more popular but Fischer random has its own problems. In my personal opinion I think No-Castling chess is a simpler and more efficient solution.
SS: I have one question on this front. You stopped playing chess somewhere in January. Did you start thinking about all these after you stopped playing or has it been in your mind before that?
VK: Long before. Actually, I started to think about it back in 2001 already. I remember mentioning it to some players including Peter Svidler. I don't know if they remember it but it was already starting to get unpleasant back then, the amount of problems one faced to get a game was of course nothing compared to what it is now but still it was substantial. My first idea was to introduce a pairing of openings but this obviously won't work anymore because at the top level everyone seems to know everything! The idea of tweaking the rules a bit occured to me a few years back but firstly since I was still into competitive chess I simply didn't get the time to work on it, and secondly I needed an opportunity to check the idea carefully with certain force. I am lucky in this regard that I had the opportunity to work with DeepMind and Alpha-Zero. I wanted to be serious about what I am proposing. I wanted to check it carefully, see the games, patterns, and statistics and only then bring it to the public. I have been working with other possible variants as well and they might even be more entertaining in some ways but No-Castling is by far the simplest. You see, if we pretend for a moment that we are learning the game of chess for the first time in life, then it is only the rule of castling that doesn't seem to make any sense. It is the only move in the entire game that involves two pieces and for no definite reasons. It is possible to make sense of en passant even because it sort of makes the game more dynamic, without the en passant rule it would be quite easy to force closed pawn structures, but castling is a very absurd move and it doesn't add to the game at all, it doesn't make it better and only makes it different. The rule of castling didn't exist originally and historically came into being much later during the 15th century or so. There are only two explanation that I can think of behind its invention. One explanation is that many centuries ago people were not that strong at chess and castling was probably a way to prolong the game, to slow it down because otherwise a game could be over in just 15 moves with a direct attack. My second theory is funnier and more political, you know chess was for many centuries considered more as a war than a game and so in a way it was one of the means to teach people how to make war and perhaps castling was invented to explain everyone that in a war first of all you have to take care of the king. The king's safety is always the first priority even if that means he can actually escape the battlefield in a strange and unjust sort of way. This is a strange story but it might have some truth behind it. Of course, somebody invented casting and somebody implemented it, so there has to be a reason behind it. So in a way this No-Castling chess makes the rules of chess more logical. It is not only simpler but also more logical to not have the right to castle.
SS: After you started working with DeepMind, at what point did you think that No-Castling chess was good to go out to the public?
VK: I was convinced even before checking it with this monster AlphaZero that No-Castling would only make the game more dynamic. First of all, every opening theory goes out of the window in this variant of chess right from move one. It is hard to say which is the best move to start with 1.e4, 1.d4, or 1.c4. In fact, I think 1.f4 makes a lot of sense under this new circumstances as it allows you to go for the quick Nf3-g3-Bg2-Rf1-Kf2-Kg1 (laughs). I don't know 1.f4 might as well be the best move here but the point is it completely destroys all theory! The main criticism I have received of this variant is that it is too simple and the new theory would develop very quickly. Now I can guarantee you that this won't happen so easily, this isn't the case. For example, suppose after 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 I play the move 3.h3, I am sure that both sides will play a new game after this but the point is it doesn't surprise your opponent or create a new pattern. You can try some unusual move like this in virtually every opening to have a game but you in fact don't have a game because you don't create any new patterns. After 3.h3 anyone will be able to continue logically with 3...c5 followed by Nc6. The problem is not the concrete moves but the patterns which are very well-known but once you change the rules and disallow castling all of these changes, I mean all these pawn structures start to take a whole new meaning. I have seen the games and I can tell you nothing is the same. It is easy to find concrete lines using an engine but it isn't easy to establish general standards and I would say it would take a good thirty or forty years for that to happen. In this scenario you can certainly have equal positions but it is a different kind of equality, it is nonstandard. But let's say if you get an even position out of a Queen's Gambit with symmetrical pawn structure then most likely the game will end in a draw. But here with the kings in the center it is totally a new situation, you have to create your own plans from scratch. Also no castling makes the game objectively more complex, it keeps a lot of options open and you have to decide whether you want to take your king to the kingside or queenside or you just want to leave it in the middle. Moreover, you have to also figure out a plan to connect your rooks. No-castling chess is closest to regular chess in a way and at the same time it concretely eliminates all theory and not just for two or three years I assure you, but for tens of years. More importantly, it is very easy to play, you might as well go inside a normal tournament and make a gentlemanly agreement with your opponent that you don't want to castle.
SS: These are very deep insights coming from you. You have obviously understood and analysed this variant of chess very deeply and we are excited to see it in action. So maybe we can look into a game and understand how it works in practice?
VK:(Kramnik goes on to show a very interesting game in No-Castling chess of Alpha-zero against itself and draws attention to some specific moments where he thinks the variant is markedly different from the regular version)
Alpha Zero versus Alpha Zero, No-Castling Chess, 2019
Chess Castling Rules
Check out the full game below with detailed analyses of some amazing lines shown by the seminal AI:
SS: So you think organizers should already go ahead get some players and try out this new format of the game?
VK: Of course, they can if they want to, I don't insist. But you know, I have actually met many organizers who were worried about the increasing number of draws in the game of chess so of course, they can go ahead and try it out, why not! Also I don't think there should be any issue in rating games of chess played in this new format because it is exactly the same chess except that you play here from move 1 instead of move 20! But more importantly I would like people to try it out at home, in friendly blitz games, so that we get more feedback about it. I would really appreciate it if people gave their feedback to me, not only in general but after actually playing some games in it. I believe this version is by no means less than Fischer random or for that matter even standard chess.
SS: Well, thank you Vladimir for presenting this to us. A final question to you, if suppose such a tournament were to be held where No-Castling was introduced. Would you be interested in playing it, now that you have retired from competitive chess?
VK: For this particular case, I have to say I will make an exception. Normally I am not planning to play in any classical event, not even in rapid but for No-Castling chess, yes I will consider. I really hope that there will some open tournaments or may be in a normal tournament some players will decide to play against the rules. It can be done and it would still be rated. Everybody is welcome to try it and then we will see.
SS: Thank you so much Vladimir for speaking to us. We really hope that this variant of chess will catch up and a lot of people will try it out!
VK: Thank you for having me and asking these questions. If there will be any other feedbacks or any other questions, you are welcomed to get in touch.
Four Rules Of Castling Chess
Bing Chess Castling
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