Castle

Do you prefer to castle long or short? And why?

Well let me be the first to say that it depends on the situation of course. Now, speaking of situations where it naturally arises (certain openings lend themselves to castling on a certain side) I enjoy castling queenside (long) because it seems many times both sides don't castle queenside as much as they do king side. Wish I had stats for that. Opposite side castling is fun chess!

Short is usually preferable. The reason is: 1. you can do it sooner (there are only 2 pieces in the way instead of 3) and 2. when you castle short, the rook's pawn is defended by the king; when you castle long, you often have to waste an extra move by moving the king over to protect the rook's pawn.

Yeah, I castle short like 90% of the time as White, and like 99% of the time when I play Black. I am interested in learning some of the intricacies of Queenside castling if anyone out there has any tips and/or pointers.