About Castling?
As with most things, it completely depends on the position of the board - it generally doesn't have a big effect on who castles first as long as both players do it early. However, some rules of thumb to think about:
- Castling kingside is usually safer for the king, and this is why the far majority of openings implement castling kingside.
- Games where the kings castle on opposite sides tends to produce more aggressive games. This is because pawns can be pushed by both sides to attack one another.
tks :)
its about the same in my experience.
kingside, you often have to move the rook to a better spot -- it defends that pawn rather passively, but in many games it isnt necessary or usefully placed.
queenside, you have to move the king over one frequently, but the rook is very often in a great location (not always, but much more often). Queenside is rare enough that it often disrupts an attack pattern/plan for lower ranked players. This rarely stops a skilled player for very long, though, sometimes just 1-2 move gained if that.
in both cases you burn a move to settle out your development, more often than not. So that leaves the opposite side thing -- pawnstorm each other, or hide behind pawns and let the action be elsewhere, usually the middle of the board becomes a warzone.
its probably heresy but there are times when not castling at all is attractive. If you trade queens and several other pieces early, you may be headed toward a "pawns, 2 rooks, 1 minor" battle where the king will want to go centralized anyway.
I think it depends on the position. If you castle on the opposite side, then these games tend to have more pawn storm attacks. That means that both players are attacking each other at the same time. Those games can be crazy. If you want a less aggressive game, then castle on the same side as him.
I hope that this helps.
