Legal Castling
As long as neither the King nor the Rook it's castling with have ever moved, as long as the King is not in check, as long as the King will not pass through check or end up landing in check after the castling move is completed, it is perfectly legal.
Is there some information about this position that has not been provided?
Black cannot castle. The reasoning I won't spoiler with; best to let people crack that on their own.
There is one relevant bit of information that is so obvious it wasn't provided - this position was reached from the normal starting position with a sequence of legal moves.
This is a very basic problem of the type, but a good introduction.
Hmm, no black can't. There is actually enough information in that picture alone to see why black can't.
Black cannot castle. The reasoning I won't spoiler with; best to let people crack that on their own.
There is one relevant bit of information that is so obvious it wasn't provided - this position was reached from the normal starting position with a sequence of legal moves.
This is a very basic problem of the type, but a good introduction.
How is that position even possible? There's no way for white's rooks to have gotten out. Were they captured behind lines by black's knights or something?
How is that position even possible? There's no way for white's rooks to have gotten out. Were they captured behind lines by black's knights or something?
As long as neither the King nor the Rook it's castling with have ever moved, as long as the King is not in check, as long as the King will not pass through check or end up landing in check after the castling move is completed, it is perfectly legal.
Is there some information about this position that has not been provided?
So the question is have king or rook ever moved?
Haha clearly the answer is in the rooks. For them to have moved at all, both sides have advanced to the other side of the board in a series of silly moves The missing info is the co-ordinates
Nope. The coordinates are a1 at bottom left like usual. The black king is currently on e8, the black rooks on a8 and h8. That smart-alec trick is never used in good retros.
It can be proven that black can't castle though, from the piece position (and the fact that black is to move now) alone.
I went here, almost wanting to post the solution, and found that pfren has just given a perfect solution. Almost, anyway.
White's last move was clearly a2-a3 and now has no previous moves, so to give White previous moves, Black must uncapture a White piece. As the rooks cannot go past the pawns, Black must uncapture a White knight. The rest is pfren's.
THIS IS D COMPLETE ANSWER:
BLACKS' knights captured white's missing pieces.white's knights captured black's missing pieces(including the dark square bishop which had no way to get out coz neither e7 nor g7 pawn is moved).
remellion dint mention d reason thinking that the king made the recapture on f8 & came back to e8(thus losing the castling right).
BUT THIS PROBLEM IS A DOUBLE BLUFF.
the black queen could have made the recapture or one of the black knights(not likely but possiblE.
THAT'S A REALLY GOOD DOUBLE BLUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!
that means you cant comment yes/no for sure......
& here you all are arguing about the white rooks instead of black's dark squared bishop! LMFAO!
tkbunny has the right idea. pfren expounds on the same idea with a complete answer. They are both correct. I have no idea what vmsfinale is talking about or how it is relevant to anything.
Ok, Black's knight on the Kingside could have come out before the pawns even moved, and got eaten later. While the bishop, thanks to the current position of the pawns, could've let one of White's knights to capture that piece, escape and then get captured.
So it mainly depends on how they got to this position. :)
Apparently the last Black move was a capture of a white knight. The a8 rook could not have done that, as a white knight cannot reach a8- actually it could before Black has played ...b6, but then what was white's next move after ...b6?
Same goes about a knight capture at c8: the knight could come there only via d6 (check!) or b6 (same issue as the rook capturing the knight).
So, either the h8 rook, or the king had captured the white knight at the last move, and white replied with a2-a3. So, Black can't castle.
Brilliant and correct, Master!