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How to Castle your King (o-o) or (o-o-o) ?

How to Castle your King (o-o) or (o-o-o) ?

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grahampawar
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Castling in Chess is one of the rules which can be used to get your King to safety. The issue arises when you are new to the game and the time comes where you do it but is quickly challenged because you violated a rule that prevents you from doing so. In this post, lets take a closer look at how to avoid getting into such problem.

Rules for Castling.

  1. The pieces involved in castling are the King and the Rook.
  2. The process of castling can only take place once, with either of the Rooks. 
  3. One of the important and sometimes painfully funny rule that people overlook is the rule about which piece to lift for castling first, the correct chess piece to lift is the King first followed by the rook. If you pick the Rook first and castle, that is illegal (beware of this rule in touch move tournaments where you have to move the piece you touch first). Here is an Article by GM Gregory Serper that explains this better https://www.chess.com/article/view/the-touch-move-rule .
  4. Depending on which Rook you castle, it is either called Short castle(o-o) or Long castle(o-o-o).
  5. The pieces involved that is the King and the Rook should not be moved during the game before the move of castling. If either of the pieces have moved, then the opponent can challenge you stating that your castling move is Illegal.
  6. While you castle, you have to check whether your King is under a Check or not. This also means that you cannot castle your king to safety if your opponent checks you.
  7. You can castle only if there are no pieces between your King and Rook.
  8. You should keep in mind that your king should be moved to two squares from it's initial position. A tip or trick to remember is that since the Black king is on the white square initially, will end up on a white square meanwhile the White king who is on a black square will end up on a black square regardless of Short or Long castle.

With the above stated Rules I hope you can now face your opponent with more confidence. Wish you the Best for your games!