Should it be legal for black to castle in this position?

Although the current rules of chess require a pawn that reaches the eighth rank to be promoted to a different piece, that was not always the case. Wilhelm Steinitz, the first world champion, in his 1889 work The Modern Chess Instructor endorsed the then-existent "Code of Laws of the British Chess Association" Law XIII thereof provided, "When a pawn has reached the eighth square, the player has the option of selecting a piece, whether such piece has previously been lost or not, whose names and powers it shall then assume..."

According to these rules, a player may choose to promote his pawn to a piece of the OPPOSITE color.

In the following position with this rule in effect, it is Black to move. Blacks king has not yet moved. Note that Whites last move had to be either a8=(a black) rook, or bxa8=(a black) rook.

 According to chess rules, you are NOT allowed to castle if:

1. Your king has been moved earlier in the game.
2. The rook that castles has been moved earlier in the game.
3. There are pieces standing between your king and rook.
4. The king is in check.
5. The king moves through a square that is attacked by a piece of the opponent.
6. The king would be in check after castling.

Should it be legal for black to castle in this position?

Let me know your thoughts on this!

-Nate

No. The same way you can't castle with any promoted rook.

You cannot answer the question without knowing how you arrived at that position.

@Scott, Rooks that have been promoted have to move to their original square. The black rook has not been moved by black.

@Rsava, we know white just promoted to a black rook, why would we need to know any more then that?

Sorry nate23, missed that. We would not need to know any more than that.

@yeres, you are a good debater, but as stated in my first post, we are playing by the rule that a player can promote to a piece of an opposite color.

no, castling should not be allowed, since that position is illegal and should STAY that way, lol.

What?

Wouldn't it be White's black rook he is castling with? So no, because you can't move an opponents piece.

another good one occurs where you can castle vertically because before fide specified that you couldn't you could theoretically promote your e pawn to a rook, and as long as your king hadn't moved and all other conditions were met, you could move your king to e3 and plop the new unmoved e8 rook down on e2

The rules seem clear to me. The Rook on a8 has not moved, so Black may castle.

I DO NOT believe castling is legal in that position. If you "assume the powers of a piece" then the white pawn is really just transforming into the black rook. In which case, the black rook has moved either 5 or 6 times in its "previous life" (as a pawn).

Black would be allowed to castle, because at the time the rules also allowed for Tim Krabbé's humourous extra long castling problem. I actually think that you would be allowed to castle no matter where the white pawn promoted to a black rook.

I wonder: If white promotes the pawn to a black rook - who will be in control of that new black rook? I think it would be funny and crazy to have the possibility to promote to a piece of the opponents colour, that can be moved by oneself, but cannot be beaten by the opponent! (and, of course, which cannot beat any of the opponents pieces) :-)

The physical piece is just a placeholder for the concept of a Rook. Conceptually, the promoted Rook is not the same as the old Rook, or any other rook, for that matter.

I don't believe Rule XIII applies in many tournaments... How many TDs do you think know of the rule?

@chessman, the rules have changed. You are no longer allowed to promote to another piece of your opponents color.

Promotion isn't replacing a piece, it's a pawn gaining the movement ability of a certain piece.  So it has moved, so it can't castle.

Ah, understood. Interesting forum!

WHY would you want to promote to your opponent's color?