This question has a twist. Is it always better to keep your opponent from castling?
Background :
In games where I had the opportunity, I forced my opponent to move his king rather than allow them to castle. I believe that there may be factors or rules to help guide you on this decision, but I am unaware of them. Also, some mates work better with a castled king others don’t depending on what pieces you have to work with.
What do you think?
What ???
Don1, what were you trying to convey with the new diagram?
One fact also to always remember - is your opponent can castle in the first
3 moves of the game, and its a form of opening. So there is no possible way
to stop the opponent from castling - the only way i see to stop him from castling
is to give him some bait and make him start a partial attack, then he wont be
castling.
just that my position was a castled position while yours wasn't.
as for your questions it all depends on the position: central pawn formation & material(perhaps to sac. & expose the King to a mating attack)
Thanks for the comment. Also, I didn't know Morphy had rules of engagement, thanks for that! I'm with you on losing the piece, and those were both very helpful quotes!
Castling has been called intuition in practice.
It's hard to tell which is better, I find that it's usually best to treat castling like any other move... if at some particular time you feel the best move in the position is to castle... do it.
Others tell you to castle as soon as possible and that can work too.
When you look at the Asian chess varients (Shogi, Chinese Chess), it becomes apparent that castling serves a purpose that goes beyond just protecting the king. It also serves as a way to get your rooks into the center of the board, because rooks are very hard to advance without moving the rook's pawn, which leave your corners much more vulnerable than they would normally be. In Shogi, for example, many games begin with a stage that is called "castling", but which really takes multiple moves, since there is no single castling move in Shogi. But the fact that many Japanese Shogi grand masters take the time to "castle", shows you how important the defensive position really is. We are lucky that Chess gives us such a powerful move as the Castle, and I would surmise that Castling is a much better thing to do than not to do it. Although there are positions (like the diagrams above) that exploit the location of the king after-castle, those situations are best avoided by insuring a flight square some time after the castle. At the time of most castling opportunities, especially in the early game, there is little to suggest that you wouldn't be gaining better position by it.
So in response to the original question, preventing your opponent from castling is likely to be a benefit.
Also, some mates work better with a castled king others don’t depending on what pieces you have to work with.
Bad example. Getting caught in the mating net of which you speak has nothing to do with the initial castled position. (BTW, if a person does not castle, then he potentially leaves himself open to other mating nets that could be much stronger.) The key is to keep an eye on your opponent's position and anticipate any attacks on your King. In the example from earlier in the thread, it's already a mate-in-1, and this is hardly an argument against castling when Black could have made other (stronger) moves between castling and the impending checkmate.
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