Castling was introduced in a chess game in fourteenth century. It is considered to be the most important move than all. It is a special defensive movement to win a game. It is the only time when a player can move more than a piece.Both the king and the rook can be moved at the same time. Castling is considered to be the effective method to bring a rook into play which would otherwise be caught behind the pawns. Castling is also most helpful in defensive strategy.
Castling is considered to be the most important goal in the early period because it achieves the following: The king can be moved to a safer position and also the rook to the active position. In most of the tournaments castling is considered as a king move. A player who wish to castle but has touched a rook first is made to move the rook .He cannot perform castling. The right way to castle is to move the king first. The safety of the king is a major concern in a game. It is not wise to move the king to the centre of the board where there are chances of facing attacks. By castling the king is moved to a safer position. The king moves only two squares in castling generally. It is either on a kingside or on a queenside.
Castling can be done by a player only once during a game and the following rules should be taken into account:
The king and the chosen rook have not been moved before.
There squares in between the chosen rook and the king should not contain pieces.
The king should not be in check and should not end up in check also.
The king should not also pass through a square that is under the attack of enemy.
The rook may be under attack.
Castling has to be done usually on a kingside. It is generally safer also. The king is moved to the edge of the board and all the pawns on the castled side are being defended. It is common for both players to perform kingside castling and very rarely queenside castling. Queenside castling takes longer time than the kingside castling. Even the pawns remain undefended by the king. The king is made to occupy the centre and it has to be moved to b- file in order to defend a -file pawn. Considering the rook, the immediate activity of it can be achieved through queenside castling. It helps to keep the rook on the central d- file. Opposite castling occurs when one of the player castle king side and the other castle queenside. Whenever a player takes four to five moves to achieve what castling could have achieved in a single move, and then it is known as artificial castling.
Castling is optional in a game but in most of the games both the players castle. Since it is effective it is not avoided by the efficient players. Castling helps to speed up the game and to maintain the balance between the offence and the defense.
