Castling question

Hi, I'm playing my first game of Chess960, and I'm unable to castle. I'm not sure if I'm just doing something wrong, or if there's a real issue.

I am playing White. In the opening placement, I have a rook on a1 and my king on a2. Neither of those pieces has moved. The a3 square is empty. If I've read the rules correctly, I should be able to castle by leaving the king where it is and moving the rook a1-a3. But nothing I try causes that castling move to occur.

Any advice?

Hi DowdyTheFifth. Thanks for taking the time to reply. However I don't understand the point you're making.

I freely admit that this is my first experience of Chess960, so I may be misinterpreting the rules. But I read the rule you quoted, and my thought is that the king has not moved. Its starting square in this particular game was a2 and it hasn't left that square.

Whereas you seem to be saying that the starting square was in fact a4 based on the standard chess layout, and there's an implied move even before the start of the game because of the shuffled pieces. Is that what you're saying? If so, it's a very different idea from what I've read.

I can assist. For a start, your king is on b1, not a2. Notation.

Next, you cannot castle because d1 is occupied. In 960, after castling the king and rook go (magically) to the squares that they would occupy in normal chess, i.e. after queenside castling the king would be on c1 and rook on d1; after kingside castling the king would be on g1 and rook on f1. In your case, d1 is occupied, so you can't castle.

To castle in 960, safest way is to drag the king onto the rook you want to castle with and release.

to castle in 960 put your king on top of your rook and it will castle

Hah, thanks Remelion (spot the dyslexic chess player!)

OK, an update for those who like me are new to this. In my current game my other rook was on d1, so I tried castling 'queenside' and was able to. The move to castle was Kb1-d1 (on top of the rook) and the computer transferred the K to g1 and the R to f1.

So my reading of this now is that the real issue is the OP of the King. If the king starts on a1 or b1 it can't castle left, because it doesn't have the space on the board to move 2 squares left. (Though I haven't yet tried it, I'm guessing a King on g1 or h1 can't castle right for the same reason.) (In which case, I have to find other means to activate my a1 Rook.)

Can anyone wiser than me confirm?

Moving the king to g1 and rook to f1 is kingside castling. Castling right.

To castle in 960 is not moving the king 2 squares and the rook over. To castle in 960 is to "teleport" (so to speak) your king and rook to the squares they would be on in regular chess.

To castle left - the king on b1 would go to c1 and the rook on a1 would go to d1 (which is currently occupied by your other rook in your game, so is currently impossible). Once d1 and c1 are vacant, you can drag your king onto the a1 rook to castle "left".

Ahh, I think the penny has just dropped. I understood the 'teleporting' idea: that the king and rook will move to the positions they occupy after a castling in regular chess. But because of where my king and queen were initially distributed, I've been thing of kingside and queenside the wrong way round. That needs to be understood in terms of regular chess as well. (to quote Homer: Duh!)

Thanks for your time and patience.