Castling is a special move in the game of chess involving the king and either of the original rooks of the same color. It is the only move in chess (leaving aside promotion) that involves more than one piece of the same player. Castling consists of moving the king two squares towards a rook, then moving the rook onto the square over which the king crossed. Castling can only be done if the king has never moved, the rook involved has never moved, the king is not in check, and the king does not cross over or end on a square in which it would be in check. Castling is considered a king move (Hooper & Whyld 1992).
The notation for castling, in both the descriptive and the algebraic systems, is 0-0 with the kingside rook and 0-0-0 with the queenside rook. In PGN, O-O and O-O-O are used instead. Castling on the kingside is sometimes called castling short and castling on the queenside is called castling long; the difference being based on whether the rook moves a short distance (two squares) or a long distance (three squares) (Hooper & Whyld 1992).
Requirements
Castling is permissible only if all of the following conditions hold: (Schiller 2001:19)
It is a common mistake to think that the requirements for castling are even more stringent than the above. To clarify:
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Castling is an important goal in the early part of a game, because it serves two valuable purposes: it moves the king into a safer position away from the center of the board, and it moves the rook to a more active position in the center of the board (it is possible even to checkmate with castling).
The choice as to which side to castle often hinges on an assessment of the trade-off between king safety and activity of the rook. Kingside castling is generally slightly safer, because the king ends up closer to the edge of the board and all the pawns on the castled side are defended by the king. In queenside castling, the king is placed closer to the center and the pawn on the a-file is undefended; the king is thus often moved to the b-file to defend the a-pawn and to move the king away from the center of the board. In addition, queenside castling requires moving the queen; therefore, it may take slightly longer to achieve than kingside castling. On the other hand, queenside castling places the rook more effectively – on the central d-file. It is often immediately active, whereas with kingside castling a tempo may be required to move the rook to a more effective square.
It is common for both players to castle kingside, and rare for both players to castle queenside. If one player castles kingside and the other queenside, it is called opposite castling. Castling on opposite sides usually results in a fierce fight as both players' pawns are free to advance to attack the opposing king's castled position without exposing the player's own castled king. An example is the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defence.
If the king is forced to move before it has the opportunity to castle, the player may still wish to maneuver the king towards the edge of the board and the corresponding rook towards the center. When a player takes three or four moves to accomplish what castling would have accomplished in one move, it is sometimes called artificial castling, or castling by hand.
i do castle in more than 80% of my games. How much castling do you do? and how much importance yoou give to castling and why?
Of my last 10 games, I castled kingside 7 times, queenside twice, and didn't castle once.
No. Castling isn't important. Neither is winning.
Move two pieces for the price of one? Protect my king and get a rook into play?
I almost always castle, unless my opponent has other ideas.
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