Bring Back Free Castling!

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Avatar of Tin-Cup

There's a really interesting article on chesscafe.com titled Bring Back Free Castling! that's in the archives section for The Kibitzer column which is written by Tim Harding. It argues that modern castling rules should be changed back to the old "free castling" rules. Free castling means that when one castles, the king & the rook can end up on various squares, e.g. the rook on e1 and the king on h1 for White in kingside castling, or the king could go to a1 (or b1, c1 etc, etc) & the Rook could go to e1 (or d1 or b1 etc) for queenside castling, these are just a few of the many permutations. Basically put, as long as the White king (for example) moves to the right of the rook for kingside castling, or to the left of the rook for queenside castling & the king and rook do not pass beyond their respective starting squares (e1 and h1 & e1 and a1) during this maneuver the move would be considered legal and playable. All other castling rules would still apply e.g. not castling through, into or out of a check and so forth. Once you've read the article you'll get a better idea of this very interesting rule. Harding argues that this rule would make chess even more interesting and would add more dynamism & strategy without radically altering the character of the game or board like so many chess variants do. (bughouse chess, progressive chess, 3-D chess, loser's/suicide/giveaway chess, Fischer random/chess360 etc) And just to reiterate, free castling was the standard way of castling before the modern rules were introduced & the old Italian rules were let go, so changing the rules is not as radical as some would think. Check out the article and post your thoughts! Here's the link to the article on free castling. 

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kibitz31.txt

Avatar of RetiFan

Soo, this could be possible?


Avatar of Tin-Cup

yes!

Avatar of Tin-Cup

pretty cool huh!

Avatar of RetiFan

How would we notate it?

Avatar of Tin-Cup

If for anything, it's something interesting to think about.

Avatar of Tin-Cup

Kf1-Re1

Avatar of RetiFan

What about 0> 0-0> and 0-0-0> for kingside and <0 <0-0 <0-0-0 <0-0-0-0 for queenside?

Avatar of TheGrobe

Kindside:
--00
0--0 
00--

Queenside:
000--
00--0 
0--00 
--000

Avatar of RetiFan
dchurchill wrote:

Looks like an abacus.

lol

Avatar of polydiatonic

It kind of makes sense. To wit: if the monarch runs into the castle why should we know beforehand which "room" (square) he will hide in?

Avatar of johnyoudell

The old men often have wisdom lost to us.  So my question would be, why did they change the rule?

Avatar of Master_Kann

I think its a lot less chaotic this way.

Avatar of Scottrf

The best rule change idea I've ever seen.

But that's not saying I necessarily think it's a good idea.

Avatar of 1RedKnight99

Looks like a good idea. Might lead to more surprising games.

Avatar of Bipolareskimo

Agreed, great idea

Avatar of Khushbu_Rani

this would be too confusing

Avatar of Conflagration_Planet

Isn't it confusing enough, as it is?

Avatar of Tin-Cup
dchurchill wrote:

Looks interesting.  Would probably destroy modern opening theory.


HA!!! This should give us even more reason to bring back free castling!

Avatar of Tin-Cup

It would turn modern opening theory on it's head without going to the extremes of Fischer random/chess 360.