Castle short or long here?

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tigerprowl9

Based on this position, if you had to castle next move (black), which side would you castle on and why?

Pikay

A short (king-side) castle looks better in this position.

The short side castle protects the f and g pawns and allows black to continue fast attacks on white's king. Considering that black has a much material and positional advantage here, a quick game should be his choice. Black can then open the center holdup with f6 which would result in quick exchanges and opening up space for black in the center. Furthermore, black's rook on a8 would be less effective if black castles long side. Now black can open on the queenside with axb5 and open his rook on that file and work in cooperation of the queen. With a queenside castle, this would no longer be available as the rook would be put to the center, where it would be laying uselessly.

ArtNJ

I dont think you can get queenside castling done because if you dont castle queenside this turn, losing a pawn for no reason and helping white, black will play a rook to f1 forcing a kingside castle.  So queenside castling just doesnt work.  

Black could easily castle kingside this move, and it looks fine.  Up a piece, safe, better position.  However, there doesnt seem to be a great rush to castling kingside this move.  Could easily delay it a bit and start by opening the afile, then you move the queen to a7, with the idea of penetrating into the weak white squares in the next couple moves.

tigerprowl9

I realized white could do something with the rooks on the f file, but I wasn't sure how successful it would be.

 

I just played it through with Stockfish.  Apparently, it's not the rooks, but the queen going back to f2 that prevens black from getting a decent attack on the queenside.

 

Can anyone explain why?

kleelof

TP6 would never have had to ask this question.

ssakash

obviously the kingside.

karenplayschess1964
tigerprowl9 wrote:

Based on this position, if you had to castle next move (black), which side would you castle on and why?

Kingside‼️

karenplayschess1964

Bg5+ attacks their queen forcing Qf7+

karenplayschess1964

Bongcloud opening is op

1. e4! e5

2. Ke2#!! You have entered the comedy zone 🎭