0-0 vs. 0-0-0

Sort:
QTipPoker

Is there some videos here or something that talk about the strengths and/or weaknesses of castling on either side of the board...when to do which, etc?

Thanks.

MrEdCollins

I know of no videos that mention this.

"Normally" castling is done on the kingside, as you are probably aware.  The reason?  It's not only faster but the king is safer.

With a few openings, castling on the queenside is preferred or considered better.

In a random pgn file I have, consisting of 375,665 games, there were 591,699 kingside castles.  In the same file there were only 69,557 queenside castles.  You can do the math to determine the percentage, but as you can see, castling kingside is much more common.

Teraus

I use 0-0-0 when it's useful for the rook to attack something right away, otherwise, I use 0-0.

b3nnyhaha

a lot of times when castling queenside it is a good idea to quickly move the king over an extra square anyway- so if you want your king on the second to last square towards the corner, and a rook in the center, castling kingside or castling queenside both take two moves to accomplish this. 

so a generally more important consideration to make, is how easily the position on either side of the board could open up, if you notice that you can easily close the position on the queenside then that is probably safer for your king, if it is easier to keep it closed on the kingside, then that is probably safer for your king. also note which direction your opponents pawns are pointing. in a french defence advance variation for example, white's pawns are pointed toward the kingside, giving white an advantage on that side of the board, and black's pawns are pointed towards the queenside, giving black an advantage on that side of the board. in short- king safety is the most important thing in deciding which side to castle on. hope this helped.

QTipPoker

Thanks everyone for the info.  One thing I was thinking maybe a possibility is to want to castle on the opposite side of your opponent.  That way you could do a pawn storm or something like that.

teodorgolan

Is 0-0-0-0-0-0# possible?

chessuser999

Yes

Guest6713430865
Please Sign Up to comment.

If you need help, please contact our Help and Support team.