Castling in the Najdorf...

We all know the adage "Castle early and often"...but as Black in the Sicilian Najdorf...I do and it seems to slow everything to a halt.  If my opponent is at all decent, they are all up in my king's business faster than I can blink...??  Is it something else or do I need to put off the castling?

You need to mention which of the eight billion lines in the Najdorf you are talking about if you want any serious advice.

Sometimes black delays castling, but a lot of times he just goes right ahead too (but obviously it's not a priority to castle as early as possible if something else is more important). You need to post some more specific lines.

I am not playing specific lines...but it seems that despite what seem to be typically good opening moves, the chance for counterplay seems to be diminished when White gets in my camp...but I am starting to see that maybe it's not so much the castling as a failure to move the Queen to c7 prior to pushing b4?  I need to go through my games and see what I am talking about because for me it's the same problem whether it's the Bc4 Lipnitzky line or  6.Bg5 or 6.f4.  

I'm trying the delayed castling and I'm gonna see how much I can get away with.

Here is a very general outline of when black castles and when he doesn't, this is from memory so there might be mistakes and of course there are exceptions.

Against:

6.Be2 black usually waits for white to castle kingside and then does so immediately after.

6.f4 black usually plays e5 and Nbd7 before Be7 and castling

6.g3 I am not sure when black castles here but it is probably safe to do it right after white does

6.Bg5 black almost never castles kingside in any of these lines,except maybe the Polugaevsky, or poisoned pawn,but it is usually way too dangerous. He usually either stays in the center and watches out for piece sacks on d5, b5 or f5 to try to crush him, or he goes queenside eventually, because white almost always goes queenside himself.

6.Be3 black either goes kingside quickly and a pawn storm race ensues if white has gone queenside, or he stays in the center and attacks white's king on the queenside. If white goes kingside than black should too without much hesitation.

6.Bc4 In these lines black usually throws the b-pawn out to b5 and often plays Bb7 and Nbd7 before castling because white can get a dangerous initiative on the kingside. It really depends on the line white chooses.

So there you go, I can't remember what happens when white plays 6.Rg1 but it doesn't really matter as it is so uncommon, black should probably just play in the center.

Ty.  excellent!  thank you for this response...it's what I was looking for...and a bit as I suspected with no certainty.  I had no idea that Black castling queenside was a common option in the 6.Bg5 lines...

That dangerous initiative you mentioned in the Bc4 lines is something I've suffered quite a bit.  I've always put castling as a painful priority and I spend the rest of the game trying to fend off White's comfortably placed pieces.

thnks

also...what determines whether you take the b8 knight to c3 or d7?