Why can't you castle out of check?

Yeah, I'm thinking along the same route. Why would you allow the king to move two squares on the one side, but three squares on the other?

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@RichColorado Can you please remove this silly picture from this thread? Put it to "off-topic" or so,  but it hurts my eyes every time I open this thread. Thanks!

(In any game that's an illegal move, tournament or not. )

And yes, I can still remember when I've learned the chess rules as a kid, I castled by moving the king towards the rook and then jumped with the rook over it. And of course that's wrong on the queen's side, but it is more intuitive than the correct castling. Maybe that's why your observed blitz players did it wrong as well. 

Moving the king toward the rook, then jumping the rook over the king, does make a lot of sense, now that you mention it ... Hmm.. Interesting.

Yes, and it works perfectly on the king's side.

Coming back to the original question of the OP, why it is not allowed to castling out of a check. I see it this way in analogy to medieval warfare. You've got to strengthen the walls of your castle before your enemy's  troops arrive. If they're already knocking on your door, it's to late to build a better one. 

Castling is a strategic move, not a tactically one. And that's what it makes it special. 

A beginner once asked my why I made that move. He said it was a bad idea because it traps my king in the corner, making it easier to lose.

I said I don't do it to protect my king, I do it to get my rook closer to attacking position. 

The king moves one square at a time.  The adrenaline rush from castling is only enough to double the king's speed, not triple it, so the king moves two squares when castling.  The fear of facing an attack counteracts that adrenaline rush, so the king can only move one square when being checked and cannot castle.  That is an explanation.

PS An easier explanation is that those are the rules but this one answers those who like to find rules illogical.

Good observation from this beginner, good answer from your side!

Castling is to often just described as a move just to bring your king into safety. But its function is also to bring the rook into the game, as you said.  I cannot count the games where I had the king rather to stay in the middle, but had to castle to bring out the rook out of its corner. 

There are other ways to connect the rooks.

Honestly, I win most of my games becasue the opponent castles kingside and their king gets trapped in the corner, then I set up my pieces so I get my queen sitting on their kings face. A lot of the time I don't castle at all in my games, or play the bong cloud which negates my castling ability and it doesn't seem to affect my results one way or another.

If you are willing to, and able to, lock the center then castling can be deferred or rejected.  A pawn storm might put your rook  on an open file without ever moving it.

That said, remaining uncastled while failing to lock the center leaves your king far out on a limb with a windstorm coming.

it say here that castling is a defensive move, you shouldn't be able to avoid a threat with it. the king is pretty slow, so if he ever moves into check he will be shot down, so he needs to be careful how he hides in his castle. thats what I found.

Here in Massachusetts we have people castling out of check all the time, but they swear the light was yellow

Well then there would be two kings to checkmate

Yea, and also for what reason promoting it to a king lol

Two kings would set off a civil war in the side the did the promotion and the other player could wait until that was resolved after the destruction of some of the pieces of that side.

lol

There is also an old story about a GM's simul where one of the players promoted to a second king.  The GM looked at the position and realized that if he checkmated either king then the other one would be in stalemate.  The GM's solution was to promote one of his own pawns to a third king of the opponent, stalemate the first two kings while maneuvering the third to the point where a single move would checkmate all three.

I know! its unfair. I was in check and I could only move my king to get out of check, this meant I could not bring my rook in into the action quickly and also could not get my king to a safe spot quickly! I was in BIG trouble.

well, in my 4 player chess games, extra kings are useless!