Definition of castling - What it is, Meaning and Concept

It is called castling to a defensive movement that takes place in a game of chess when the tower and the king of the same side change their position simultaneously .This is the only move that allows moving two pieces (tower and king) at the same time.

To develop the castling it is necessary that the king and the tower have not been moved before; that the king is not in check; that the escapes (lockers) that are between the two pieces are unoccupied; and that none of the escapes through which the king will pass and stay will be under attack .

There are two kinds of castling.The short castling is carried out with the tower located closer to the king , while the long castling It is specified with the tower farthest from the king.It is important to keep in mind that, unlike what happens with the king, the selected tower can be under attack.The king, on the other hand, may have been in check in another previous moment.

The castling can be done at any time of the game although, by the aforementioned rules, there is no possibility of specifying it before the fourth movement (since they must first be removed the bishop and the horse of the path, something that also requires the displacement of a pawn).

It is important to note that chess is one of the most popular games in history, and that it is considered extremely difficult to master.This seems contradictory to the apparent simplicity of its rules : anyone can learn them with a little patience and dedication, but only a few can become great players.

One of the reasons for such difficulty lies in the need to put together a strategy, something that, on the other hand, requires a great deal of patience and attention.In order to beat a good chess player we need to think through each our plays, evaluating in advance all the alternatives that occur to us to avoid fatal errors.Before taking a step, we must imagine what our opponent would do in response, and even what possibilities his potential move would give us, until we reach the limit of our intellect.

The castling is not a complex movement: as it is expressed in the previous paragraphs, it has a series of rules that prevent us from executing it at any time, but it is not a play reserved for chess geniuses.However, like almost all others, it is useless to force it or use it systematically and predictably, since it does not assure us of victory.

Precisely, the worst thing we can do during a game of chess it is to expose our strategy through predictable movements .Of course, getting a seemingly spontaneous style that adapts to the different situations created by the opponents is not easy, especially because of the rigidity of the rules of the game itself, which gives players a very limited range of possibilities.

The conventions state that castling should be used as soon as possible, within the limits of the rules, but this can also result in the plays becoming predictable; For that reason, the ideal is to surprise the opponent with original plays, that they fire him and prevent him from knowing when or if we will use him.

In colloquial language, on the other hand, the idea of ​​castling refers to a exchange of positions .If the technical director of a soccer team decides, without replacing players, locate a striker as a midfielder, in turn making a midfielder go to play as a striker, it can be said that he has made a castling.