Control the middle-castle early-keeps me below 1600

Castling is a bit overrated IMO, boungcloud (bringing the king into the center early) ftw!

When I first learned to play chess the king could move two squares on the very first move and then only one the rest of the game.  I tried to do it with a game here and it didn't work, i had to castle in order to move two squares on the king's first move.

Cystem thank you

For lower levels, once castling is available, you should consider it your first option.  Now, there will come many times when you will want to do something first, especially to prevent some action in the center by the opponent, but you should be fairly certain it is something that cannot wait a move and that the opponent will not be able to prevent you from castling as a result.

Sure, there are many French Defense positions in which Black either castles Queenside or not at all, or Sicilians when castling early just invites an attack, but at your level you shouldn't be trying to play the French or Sicilian anyway.  In these and other openings it usually requires a high degree of knowledge of the position to make that call.

Castling too early may cost you from time to time, but the bill will generally be much less than the cost of castling too late.

I think you should wait sometime near when your in check so you dont get checkmate sometimes i castle and get checkmate but i learned and look all around before i castle.Iface people in real life and when i castle they just stare at me like what  the heck are you doing?

So you're walking down the street and just all of the sudden castle?

and look before you castle...i once castled into a one move checkmate...(  ^ _^)

I always end up castling at the last second. It's usually last on my priority list - I'm not proud of that! 

One time when I was 14, I was trying on some levi's at a miller's outpost, and the lady in the stall next to me must have castled, because she just about knocked me out.

Is that what castling means?

That's one of those horrible instances of castling that never make the news. When I was sixteen, I had a castling experience which caused quite a strange middle game throughout the neighborhood. Post-traumatic castling does occur, but is rarely spoken of...

has anyone ever shastled?

Shastling is kinda racist, bugoobiga

stupid.

racist?

let me guess...you're strung out on the hope & change kool-aid, right?

step off!

that's right, george, I said step off.

Yay I love it when threads turn into Seinfeld quote-a-thons!

I usually castle around my fifth move, but you shouldn't always. If you must attend to something in the center first, you should instead of castling. Aalso, if your opponent is attacking the wing where you should castle, don't (unless you want to lose). So it really depends on the position (like basically everthing else).

I never castle as white.

I try to castle within my first 6 or 7 moves, depending on how the game is being played out

 *** astonished! ***  Does that work for you???