Castling is the Worst Rule in Chess

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Avatar of UthorPendragon

After starting this post I realized that I don't really have a much of a problem with castling. My main issue is that there are too many draws in chess, especially at the GM level.

Avatar of UthorPendragon

I also made a lot of posts to the "Stalemate is the most senseless rule ever" forum.

Since the 2016 World Championship had 12 games with 10 draws I think that is good evidence that Capablanca's fears of "draw death" are coming true.

Avatar of UthorPendragon

I have started a new thread:

 

Capablanca's Fear of "Death Draw" is Here

 

People are coming up with rule change ideas to reduce draws. I will be reading and posting there.

One idea is about bringing back "Free Castling" and seems very interesting.

Avatar of UthorPendragon

I already changed my stance on Castling!

Read posts 45-47. 

 

Avatar of universityofpawns

No OP, being allowed to mindlessly check and hope that the other guy makes a mistake is the worst rule or "non-rule" in chess. Maybe no more than 5 checks in a row or it is a loss for the mindless checker?

Avatar of Nordlandia

Great players never castle until the end of the game, and often never at all, as their king, although often in the middle of the board, nevertheless stands secure.

 

Good players seldom castle.

 

In short -> good players don't feel the need to waste tempo with castling. 

Avatar of penandpaper0089

Wouldn't this make the king's gambit the best opening? Lol

Avatar of UthorPendragon

By the way Kramnik once discussed a simple way to reduce the number of draws in chess without radically changing the game.
Simply remove the right to castle and take away en passant. Those are both defensive ideas that help make it easier to draw.
Kramnik in the end said that chess doesn't really need to be changed like that.

He probably accidentally wrote something on these forums, was accused if being gay, a moron, a troll etcetera, etcetera and decided why bother!

Avatar of ZoneDestruct

maybe chess.com should add an option to play without castling allowed so the 0.001% who don't like it can play without it.

Avatar of lavahound100
No offense UthorPendragon this was a dumb idea and you are kinda getting
# recked
# roasted
Buy all these people
Avatar of UthorPendragon

I agree and changed my opinion. My point is Kramnick had the same idea, so it can't be as bad as some of the ignorant and rude people on these threads make it out to be. There appears to be a group that just wants to curse, belittle and abuse others just for fun. I'm surprised chess.com doesn't do more to stop them.

Avatar of CCHeckman

Castling is based on an old rule of chess, that the king's first move was allowed to be two squares in any direction.

Avatar of CCHeckman
long_quach wrote:
CCHeckman wrote:

Castling is based on an old rule of chess, that the king's first move was allowed to be two squares in any direction.

An older rule is no castling.

The intermediate rule explains why we have castling, though.

Avatar of CCHeckman
UthorPendragon wrote:

After starting this post I realized that I don't really have a much of a problem with castling. My main issue is that there are too many draws in chess, especially at the GM level.

I suppose someone has done this already, but ... it would be interesting to see a breakdown of why the games were drawn.

Avatar of CCHeckman
long_quach wrote:
CCHeckman wrote:
 

I suppose someone has done this already, but ... it would be interesting to see a breakdown of why the games were drawn.

Because chess is theoretically drawn.

It's just a bigger version of tic-tac-toe.

But are most of the draws by agreement? Stalemate? Insufficient mating material?

Avatar of GeezerGambit
You could always switch to Monopoly. There’s no castling and no draws in Monopoly.
Avatar of Impractical

The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics 🧐

Avatar of fx_insanity

What if you added boxing?

Avatar of fx_insanity

That's my point. Chess-boxing, chinese chess, and backgammon would be an awesome triad

Avatar of fx_insanity

Chess-boxing counts as one sport. Change my mind.