If You Could Change One Rule In Chess, What Would It Be?

Fischer agreed to play Karpov in that variant in 2006 for a total purse of $14 million. But it took a while to raise the money. There’s a Discovery Channel documentary about it. And three newspaper articles that I know of. Plus many YouTube videos by a chess book author with the game’s inventor. You can play the game online here, or on a site in Budapest, Hungary, buy physical boards and pieces including an expensive double-sided 10x8 and 8x8 wooden board, buy clothes and hoodies, buy a PC program that can announce a checkmate in 268 moves, and see games of it played by Fischer, Susan Polgar, Larry Kaufman, Fridrik Olafsson (all Grandmasters) but other than that, I agree, hasn’t really done much.

https://nypost.com/2006/10/29/bobby-tolya-maybe-game-for-gothic/

https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/homepage/20080119_Fischer_started_reign_with_a_win_in_Phila_.html#:~:text=The%20Philadelphia%20area%20gave%20chess,in%20orchestrating%20one%20last%20hurrah.&text=01%20a.m.%20ET-,The%20Philadelphia%20area%20gave%20chess%20wizard%20Bobby%20Fischer%20his%20first,in%20orchestrating%20one%20last%20hurrah.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=prVYwsBpHb8&pp=ygUVRWQgdHJpY2Ugc3VzYW4gcG9sZ2Fy

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O7CKxNdGWaw&pp=ygUZRG91YmxlIHNpZGVkIGdvdGhpYyBjaGVzcw%3D%3D

In most circumstances, castling costs you a tempo. A lost tempo can hand your opponent the initiative. I.e., time to mount an attack or put positional pressure on you that you will have to respond to immediately and keep responding to.

The exception is when castling puts your Rook onto an open file that is occupied by an undefended piece or pawn that your opponent must spend a tempo defending. In that case, castling gains a tempo, but even in the majority of cases where it costs you a tempo, it’s worth it — and your opponent will usually also spend a tempo castling so it’s a wash.

If your opponent is already in a position to immediately take advantage of your lost tempo by attacking a weak point in your position, though, castling may be unwise.

When the weak point is an undefended pawn directly in front of the castled king that is already subject to an overloaded attack, castling will get you immediately checkmated. You have to check for conditions like that before you make the decision to castle.

If the weakness is not already an overloaded attack on a pawn in front of the castled King but it can be within a single move (because there was already one piece aimed at it), you need to anticipate this and make sure that you’ll be able to block or defend against that attack when it occurs.

Remove touch move

King can castle with any unmoved piece on the back rank.

Castling is not inherently safe or unsafe. It’s a move that may be good or bad depending on the circumstances. It’s a very efficient move; it’s the only move where you get to move two pieces at once, and even in a way that would normally be illegal for them. But that’s still only worth it when it actually accomplishes something you need.

If, for example, your king’s side is under attack, castling to that side is a bad idea, because it may actually make your king more vulnerable. Personally I prefer to castle on the queen’s side, for a couple of reasons: opponents at my level are less used to it, so it’s a surprising move, and it puts the king less far off into a corner, which makes him feel less vulnerable to me. Also, in some cases, it can put your rook on an open line. I once won a game against a much stronger player by unexpectedly castling long.

Hmmm, there are a few things going on here. First, I’ll post the picture linked to in the question, just to save everyone the click:

Now, I don’t know what black’s last move was. I’m guessing it was Qxb2. That brings me to my first point: Don’t mistake “unsafe king” with “missed mate in 1.”

In other words, black had played something like … g6 or … f5 instead of what they played, they wouldn’t have gotten mated like this. (I note, BTW, that at least one of those moves are necessarily legal, even without knowing black’s last move.)

But the position doesn’t look great for black anyways. Had black stopped mate in 1 with g6 or f5, there’s still QxB on d7. That puts black at a substantial material deficit — three pieces, although perhaps black could be sure of getting something back, e.g. after Qxb2.

This brings me to my second point: Being down 3 pieces makes your king unsafe, no matter where on the board it is. Castling is not a panacea to all the other punishment that has been inflicted on you. It’s (typically) harder to mate a castled king than an uncastled king, but if you’re going to just allow your opponent to scoop up loose pieces, mate is going to follow quickly.

There is not always safety in castling, especially if your opponent is lying in wait for you to do so. It is best to leave yourself options and that includes whether the time is right to castle.

Castling in general usually increases king safety but that’s only a general rule. They are times where castling actually puts you in mortal peril. This is often the case where a position is set up in such a way that your opponents piece mass is focused in that direction and you have insufficient defense.

If the side you castle is also filled with holes, like lacking pawns in front of the king once castled, the same applies.

in the case you showed however.you simply missed a concrete tactic. a direct mate in 1 threat. Black had enough options to properly counter the threat and you missed it.

Castling is a defensive move. Doing so, means you have used up a move that might otherwise have been spent pressing the attack on your opponent. So, the decision is yours as to when and whether that is advisable. If your opponent did not castle, but you did, that meant he/she was then one step ahead of you and you spent the rest of the game playing catchup.

What do you think “safe” means? It certainly doesn’t mean you can’t get mated. If that were true, everyone would castle, no one would lose, and Chess would be over. Or more likely, it would have been removed from the rules centuries ago.

Castling can be safer than not in many situations, but it’s not automatic, you still have to play well. To put it another way, you can castle and then play in a way that makes the castled king’s position extremely dangerous.

Castling is hiding in a corner. As long as the corner is well guarded, it’s safe. But if that corner opens up, the very pieces that were supposed to be keeping your opponent out are now keeping your king in.

Listen,

The castling rule was added because of the Queen.

Long story short, when chess entered in Europe through Spain, the original piece Visir from Chaturanga became the Queen. But it was not a simple change of name, it changed also the movements of the piece. The Visir used to move only in diagonal and only by one square.

So this change of rules made the King very weak and therefore castling was invented.

At high levels of play there's a lot of draws.
So if you made it that Kings could castle out of check or through check or loosened up the castling rules some other way - there'd be even more draws.
As it is now the percentage of draws is low enough at lower levels and high enough at higher levels.
As it is now - with King and rook versus King and rook - players cannot claim a draw.
The rule is that the online blitz game continues unless both players agree to a draw.
So how about getting rid of that rule and instead having -
Either player pressing the draw button whether its his move or not - and the game is instantly drawn?
Objection: One player worked hard and played skillfully to build up a big edge on the clock.
But that could happen with King and knight versus King and knight too.
So I say - get rid of the 'mutual'. Either player can instantly make it a draw with K+R versus K+R.
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Much harder: King and h-pawn versus King with the lone K on the h-file in front of the pawn - and the lone King's flag falls.
That's a win because the pawn could make mating material.
But its a book draw though.

IT DEPENDS.

“It depends” is the answer to any general question about a chess position. If your tactics are bad, and I’m guessing they are, your opponents will beat you no matter who has or has not castled.

King safety is just one aspect of the position. Castling tends to improve its safety, but developing that rook is equally important.

This is Chess engine space… Castling is only does what it does within chess rules. It may be a good move to get safety to king or based on the position can be a totally useless move.