Old Weird Rules.

You used to be able to castle vertically if you under promoted a pawn to a castle, it was a loophole now closed.

The rules used to say if the king and the rook have not moved you could castle. I think it was used in crazy puzzles.

Did you see the en passant checkmate last month in the tournament? Thats the best niche I ever saw.

En passant is the worst rule in chess

It’s a European thing?

I don't think this ever existed. You probably saw the same youtube video as me, but it was from an strange interpretation of the rules, claiming they allowed this as a loophole, but nothing is less certain. I would ask for more to start believing it. 

The video claims it's from a 1970s puzzle I believe, but the 1930 Fide rules already mention the row ("traverse")

Le Roque est une marche combinée du Roi et d’une Tour ne comptant que pour un seul coup. Le Roi quittant sa case initiale se place sur la case la plus proche de même couleur et située sur la même traverse, puis la Tour vers laquelle il s’est dirigé vient se placer contre lui et de l’autre côté, toujours sur la même traverse.

https://fr.m.wikisource.org/wiki/R%C3%A8gle_du_Jeu_d%E2%80%99%C3%89checs_de_la_F._I._D._E._(%C3%A9dition_officielle_1930)

It was a thing. Check this  out: https://www.futilitycloset.com/2009/12/11/outside-the-box/

Because of this puzzle, which generated a lot of controversy, FIDE had to update their rules.

All those blogs are just referencing one another with no source whatsoever. While I have showed that the official FIDE rules mention castling having to be on rows (traverses) and not columns (colonnes) as soon as 1930. Nice urban legend tho

I feel like this practice has to have a name (One single erroneous source being cited only for the citer to be cited itself and, since it isn't as obviously bad as the original, everyone just accepts it as true) but I have no idea what it is.  Fact bootstrapping?  It's frustrating, especially in cases like this where the "fact" is so novel or interesting that people REALLY want to believe it, and are willing to fight for the veracity of it regardless of any evidence.

Yes, you are right. I've found the English translation of the laws of chess from 1931 and it indeed has in its definition of castling "in the same rank" qualifier (section 8).

Now that the part about FIDE changing its rules because of that puzzle is apparently false, I wonder how much of this story is true at all. Was that puzzle actually published in 1972? Was there "much debate in Dutch and Belgian chess columns?"

It's called "poor research."

hi!