Castling long

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Gavin Strachan
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Re: Castling long

Post by Gavin Strachan » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:38 pm

I remember when I was little (well only 6 foot at the time probably) and I was learning chess my family was given a computer chess game. The computer always used to do this bizarre king move then later move some piece next to the king a few goes later. That's the way I learnt about castling. The last rule of chess I learnt was promoting a pawn to anything, I used to think it was queen only when I was at school until I got a book on puzzles by the Problemist.

Richard James
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Re: Castling long

Post by Richard James » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:39 pm

Andrew Bak wrote:
Richard Thursby wrote:Some people have tried to argue that for example, if white promotes a pawn to a rook on e8 then it is possible, subject to the usual restrictions, to castle by moving the king to e3 and the rook to e2. I don't agree with this, since the pawn has been promoted to a rook, not replaced by a rook (even though that happens in practice on the board), so the rook on e8 was originally a pawn on the second rank so has moved to e8 and hence can't be used for castling. Apart from the diagrams, the laws of chess (2009) don't rule this out.

I believe the approved method of entering an illegal move in chessbase is to produce two (or more, as necessary) separate files for the game.
I seem to remember that Sam Loyd produced a problem using this ambiguity in the rules, but I unfortunately have no source for this, I just have my dodgy memory...
It was Tim Krabbé - you can read about it here - scroll about half way down.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Castling long

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:44 pm

Andrew Bak wrote:
Richard Thursby wrote:Some people have tried to argue that for example, if white promotes a pawn to a rook on e8 then it is possible, subject to the usual restrictions, to castle by moving the king to e3 and the rook to e2. I don't agree with this, since the pawn has been promoted to a rook, not replaced by a rook (even though that happens in practice on the board), so the rook on e8 was originally a pawn on the second rank so has moved to e8 and hence can't be used for castling. Apart from the diagrams, the laws of chess (2009) don't rule this out.

I believe the approved method of entering an illegal move in chessbase is to produce two (or more, as necessary) separate files for the game.
I seem to remember that Sam Loyd produced a problem using this ambiguity in the rules, but I unfortunately have no source for this, I just have my dodgy memory...
I found a source that mentions castling this way in several places:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XCkJ ... C&pg=PA109

With the first mention being a Jean-Luc Secret in 1971.

Lots of other interesting examples in that book. It looks quite good ('Outrageous Chess Problems', Burt Hochberg, 2005)

Michael Jones
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Re: Castling long

Post by Michael Jones » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:51 pm

Justin Hadi wrote:I heard some titled player won a bet based on that trick before the rules were changed. Probably somebody mentioned it to FIDE rather than an attenpt to castle like that in a real game.
A friend of mine claimed that he'd heard of somebody doing it in a game and FIDE had reworded the rule specifically to remove the ambiguity, but I rather suspect that's a chess urban legend - nice story, but it's unlikely that it ever actually happened

A while ago Chessbase ran an article on problems which had been devised to highlight misprints/errors in the rules as they'd appeared in various books - my favourite was a mate in two in which White's first move was to promote a pawn to a black king, and the second mated both kings simultaneously.

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Re: Castling long

Post by Richard James » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:55 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Andrew Bak wrote:
Richard Thursby wrote:Some people have tried to argue that for example, if white promotes a pawn to a rook on e8 then it is possible, subject to the usual restrictions, to castle by moving the king to e3 and the rook to e2. I don't agree with this, since the pawn has been promoted to a rook, not replaced by a rook (even though that happens in practice on the board), so the rook on e8 was originally a pawn on the second rank so has moved to e8 and hence can't be used for castling. Apart from the diagrams, the laws of chess (2009) don't rule this out.

I believe the approved method of entering an illegal move in chessbase is to produce two (or more, as necessary) separate files for the game.
I seem to remember that Sam Loyd produced a problem using this ambiguity in the rules, but I unfortunately have no source for this, I just have my dodgy memory...
I found a source that mentions castling this way in several places:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XCkJ ... C&pg=PA109

With the first mention being a Jean-Luc Secret in 1971.

Lots of other interesting examples in that book. It looks quite good ('Outrageous Chess Problems', Burt Hochberg, 2005)
It's also in Tim Krabbé's book Chess Curiosities, top of the list of my desert island chess books... and a book which is out of print but shouldn't be.

Michael Jones
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Re: Castling long

Post by Michael Jones » Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:01 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:I found a source that mentions castling this way in several places:

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=XCkJ ... C&pg=PA109

With the first mention being a Jean-Luc Secret in 1971.

Lots of other interesting examples in that book. It looks quite good ('Outrageous Chess Problems', Burt Hochberg, 2005)
It doesn't surprise me to see John Beasley's name cropping up; he's certainly someone with a keen interest in the more eccentric side of chess - a regular on the circular chess circuit (no pun intended) and he once persuaded me to spend a break during a tournament analysing some endgames in losing chess.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Castling long

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed Feb 09, 2011 8:27 am

I managed to get a Law changed a few years ago. FIDE decided to say that check was when the king was attacked by "one or two pieces", so I created a position where one side was in double check, and additionally a knight was pinned to the king. You simply move the knight delivering mate, and as your king is attacked by three pieces it isn't in check...
They changed the law after Mike Fox and Richard James published it in their excellent column in Chess.
"Kevin was the arbiter and was very patient. " Nick Grey

IanDavis
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Re: Castling long

Post by IanDavis » Wed Feb 09, 2011 3:00 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote:I managed to get a Law changed a few years ago. FIDE decided to say that check was when the king was attacked by "one or two pieces", so I created a position where one side was in double check, and additionally a knight was pinned to the king. You simply move the knight delivering mate, and as your king is attacked by three pieces it isn't in check...
They changed the law after Mike Fox and Richard James published it in their excellent column in Chess.
Well I don't understand that point.
1. Surely 'attacked' should be replaced with 'could be captured one the next move by', otherwise an indirect attack would constitute check.
2. Since it didn't (or did it?) say only one or two pieces, then we can say that if a King is attacked by 3 pieces then it is certainly attacked by two pieces as well, and indeed 1 piece.

Out of interest, how many rules does FIDE currently have for Chess? How many of these rules are published properly? (The new fangled handshake one did not seem to be published properly the last time I checked, I had to do a site search to find it)

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Re: Castling long

Post by Alex Holowczak » Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:07 am

IanDavis wrote:Out of interest, how many rules does FIDE currently have for Chess? How many of these rules are published properly? (The new fangled handshake one did not seem to be published properly the last time I checked, I had to do a site search to find it)
If we're being pedantic, FIDE has 0 rules - it does have 14 Law Articles though...

I guess it depends on what you count as the rules of the game. There are:
  • 14 articles for the Laws of Chess
  • 5 Appendices, for things relating to algebraic notation, Braille players, Quickplay Finishes with no arbiter present etc.
  • 1 set of guidelines in case a game needs to be adjourned
  • Tournament Rules, how a tournament should run, how pairings are done, the role of the team captain etc.
  • Other stuff I'm not really interested in: Telechess and Regulations for computer play
The list goes on. Pluck the relevant bits from the FIDE Handbook: http://www.fide.com/fide/handbook.html

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: Castling long

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Thu Feb 10, 2011 12:57 am

Alex Holowczak wrote:
IanDavis wrote:Out of interest, how many rules does FIDE currently have for Chess? How many of these rules are published properly? (The new fangled handshake one did not seem to be published properly the last time I checked, I had to do a site search to find it)
If we're being pedantic, FIDE has 0 rules - it does have 14 Law Articles though...
They're still rules, even if they're called the Laws.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Castling long

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Thu Feb 10, 2011 8:19 am

"2. Since it didn't (or did it?) say only one or two pieces, then we can say that if a King is attacked by 3 pieces then it is certainly attacked by two pieces as well, and indeed 1 piece."

It said attacked by "one or two pieces". There was a hint in the " ". Previously it read "one or more pieces", but obviously someone thought you couldn't have more than two, so they changed it, not realising that the earlier Law was clearly thought out.
"Kevin was the arbiter and was very patient. " Nick Grey

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