Crazy Chess Beliefs

I always considered the Queen to be the only female on the board and loving every minute of it.

Our house-rule in Monopoly is that all fines, etc. paid go in the middle of the board and the first person to land on Free Parking gets all of that cash.  Many times it is the deciding factor in who wins the game.

I happened to be reading the USCF rulebook, and ran across what I think is a widespread belief that turns out to be wrong...or maybe it was a crazy belief and everyone else already knew it.

I had always been told that when castling, you must move the king first.  If you move the rook first, you were compelled to make a legal move with the rook, but not to castle.  It turns out that is wrong, at least by USCF rules.  If you touch the rook, you must move the rook, but castling, if legal, remains an option until the player touches the clock.

Interesting, I wonder what the FIDE rule is.

I'd been told it was iffy, and to avoid an incident go ahead and lead with your king.

Beginners like to set up with queens opposite of kings.

They also don't care how the board is oriented.

(eg. White King on white square?)

People across the world play chess under FIDE laws of chess, and touching the king first when castling is not a crazy belief, but indeed a rule, derived from strict "touch move" rule:

Article 4: The act of moving the pieces

FIDE laws of chess:

http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&view=article

Would you be so kind to quote from your sources, I haven't found that USCF explicitly allows touching a rook first(it appears that there is no online version of the USCF rules).

According to some forums, it appears that the USCF rule is a bit unclear, therefore subject to different interpretations :

http://www.chessforums.org/general-chess-discussion/4383-fide-vs-uscf-rules-2.html

Dragec wrote:

 It is rule 10I2 in the 5th edition USCF rulebook.  It says, "If a player intending to castle touches the rook first, there is no penalty, except if castling is illegal, the player must move the rook if legal." 

10I1 says that if he touches the king first, or the king and rook simultaneously, he must move king if it is legal to do so, otherwise he may make any move.

There is some slight ambiguity here in that it is very clear that if you pick up the rook, and then pick up the king, and then place them where they need to go, you have castled.  What happens, though, if you pick up the rook, move it to the castling square, release it, and then pick up the king?  As you release the rook, you have made a legal move.  Under rule 9A, the move is determined with no possibility of change when you transfer a piece to a vacant square and release it.  In castling, the move is determined with no possibility of change when you release the king after moving it two squares.  So, what if you release the rook?

As a TD, I would be strongly inclined to allow the castle.  Because rule 10I2 explicitly allows the rook to be touched first, it is clear that they intended not to create a position in which a player is forced to make a move that he does not intend to make because of some technicality of  the order of touching pieces.  Did they really intend to allow him to touch the rook first, but only if he then uses both hands to move the pieces, or is very adept at manipulating pieces and juggling them in a single hand?

One thing I like about the 5th edition USCF rules (I have not read any earlier editions) is that in several cases where someone might try to win by being a "rules lawyer", it basically says to give it a rest and try to win by playing better Chess.  I think this is intended to be one of those cases.

I read once that a grandmaster game was altered because the king had moved prior to castling, and moved back...later on, the player castled, and nobody had noticed (tournament judges or however it goes).  Given how much detail there is involved, that's hard to believe.

Any arbitrator or TD. . .

The "touch-move" rule - it states that if a player touches a piece with the intention of moving that piece, then he must move it if legally possible. This, I imagine, is to eliminate unintentional touching, but really seems mis-stated to me. Better, to me, would be to say that if a person touches a piece without the obvious intention of moving that piece, he's not required to move that piece, since it's usually easier to determine what a person's intentions were not than what his intentions were.   For instance, if he hits it with his little finger while reaching for a different piece, it's obviously unintended, but if he touches it then picks up a different piece, he can make up all kinds of reasons and we can't know his true intention.   It's always been explained to me that unless a person says the equivalent to j'adoube or touches a pice with something other than his hand (assuming he has hands,  of course), then the touch must be deemed as intending to move that piece.  Am I wrong in my thinking?

That's how I learned it (the contiguous rule) when I was a kid, then I didn't play Chess for thirty years or so, and I was shocked when suddenly during one game against Chessmaster the game ended by threefold repetition, even though we hadn't gone back and forth three times.

Slightly.  The actual statement of USCF rules is somewhat confusing, but the overall intent is fairly clear.  The purpose of the rule is to not let players move around pieces to see where they might end up, thus helping them visualize better moves.  The purpose of the rule is not to penalize people who are slightly clumsy.   If you grab a piece in such a way that you are capable of grasping it and moving it to a new place, it is assumed that that is your intention, and you now have to move it.  If you bump the top of the king while reaching for a different piece, you don't have to move the king.  (That particular one is an explicit example from the rulebook.)  On the other hand, if you grab one piece, but then claim it was your intention to grab a different piece, ie you grab the knight, but then say, "I meant to grab the bishop." it is assumed that no, you meant to grab the knight and you are now trying to weasel out of it.

A TD tip at the beginning of chapter 10 notes that if there are no witnesses and the players can't agree on exactly what happened, the TD should deny the claim, i.e. the player should not be forced to move a piece if he claims that there was incidental, unintentional, contact, but the other player claims that the piece was grabbed.

So, to try to answer your question slightly more directly, it really does depend on exactly "how" the piece was touched not just that it was touched with the hand, and the rulebook gives specific examples to demonstrate that.  It seems clear that the intent is to not let someone win on a technicality.  You don't want to give someone a win just because his opponent lacked dexterity.

Re the 50-move rule referenced at the top of the the thread: I understand that FIDE changed this to 100 moves several years ago after computers found that some KNBvK positions required more than 50 moves to get to checkmate.

Some endgames require over 200 moves to win apparently.  Even so, FIDE has reinstated the 50 move rule I believe.

"You don't want to give someone a win just because his opponent lacked dexterity."

Then, I take it, you (in the spirit of the USCF) would condone take-backs in official online chess games for claimed mouseslips due to lack of dexterity?

 Is an online game ever "official"?

If my opponent makes what is obviously a mouse slip, I would try and remedy the situation.  I don't think chess.com actually allows "takebacks" does it?  If so, I would let him take it back.  If I had been headed for near certain defeat, and the mouse slip changed that to near certain victory, I would offer a draw, but I wouldn't resign.  If it were part of a tournament (I don't play in online tournaments, but if I did) I'm not sure, as that would have an impact not just on that game, but on future games as well.

And of course, every situation is slightly different, so I might do something different based on the totality of the circumstances.  However, the general principle is that I would not really think I had won a game of Chess if I won as a consequence of a lack of dexterity.  Capitalizing on a blunder is just fine, but on a slip?  It would depend on my available options to try and right the situation.

OK, I'm just trying to determine if, at least in some peoples' minds, mouseslips equate with touch-move.  For myself, I think takebacks should be completely taboo and the touch-move rule enforced vigorously (with possible allowances for genuine handicaps).  This isn't because I think chess results should be determined by technicalities due to clumsiness, but I think rules should be clear and unforgiving. If you can't cook without putting your hand on a burner, perhaps you need a different hobby. Bumping a piece is clearly not touching it with any intent on moving it, but laying a finger on a piece isn't accidental. A mouseslip is a mistake, if one can evaluate the veracity of one's opponent, but a mistake due to either a faulty mouse - the person decided to play with inadequate equipment - or insouciance, both of which are ultimately unnecessary, therefore acts of negligence more than lack of coordination.  I don't like winning, or losing,  because of a physical mistake, but I don't want to insult Caissa either, so I neither ask for nor offer takeback (nor allow my opponent, or myself, to touch one piece and move another). 

I didn't know we had a patron goddess.  Cool.

I'm not sure I accept your legal analysis, though.  If I offer a draw to a player I think deserves it, that is perfectly within the rules, so Caissa ought not be offended.  In the case of OTB play, the USCF rules encourage the TD to deny claims of touch move violations unless the evidence is clear, so once again, if you are a stickler for following the rules, you would not try to invoke the touch rule unless you were certain that your opponent had had the intention of moving the piece when he touched it.  In my humble opinion, attempting to gain an unearned advantage through exploitation of a touch rule might offend the goddess more, but Greek gods were notoriously fickle, so it is difficult to say.

hmmm maybe aesthetics - he enjoys the L word...

I've been looked upon as having 3 heads throughout my chess playing days for both en passant and castling.  

KNB vs K takes 33 moves with best play from any starting position:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_and_knight_checkmate

Some other positions needs more moves (for example KNN vs KP):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_knights_endgame

but the rule is 50 moves, so some endgames can not be converted into win(with best play from both sides), even though they are forced win, but not in 50 moves :

FIDE laws of chess:

http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?id=124&view=article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifty-move_rule